Ben Steventon
@bensteventon.bsky.social
📤 758
📥 1090
📝 14
pinned post!
Happy to share this work from Carlos Camacho de la Maccora that reveals how rates of posterior progenitor addition and anterior vacuolation are balanced across the notochord. With Alberto Ceccarelli and
@osvaldo-chara.bsky.social
we present a model of long-range communication to provide robustness.
19 days ago
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Looking forward to this exciting meeting on embryo models! Registration and abstract submission is open now:
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11 days ago
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Ben Steventon
Zena Hadjivasiliou
14 days ago
Spring PhD recruitment round
@crick.ac.uk
is now open and we have a project on offer:
www.crick.ac.uk/careers-stud...
. If you have a background in maths or physics and are curious about patterning and growth in biology this could be the project for you! Please help us spread the word 💥
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John Wallingford
19 days ago
Let's get this hashtag started! The 2026 Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting is happen this August! We will share updates using
#SCDB26
. Can't wait!
scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu
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Osvaldo Chara
18 days ago
Thrilled to share this adventure on how zebrafish elongates its notochord! 🐟 Kudos to Carlos Camacho de la Macorra and
@bensteventon.bsky.social
for leading it. Alberto Ceccarelli and I had so much fun modelling & uncovering unexpected predictions… A nice mix of maths 📐, computing 💻 & experiments 🔬!
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I'm excited to be speaking at the upcoming Developmental Biology meeting in Santa Cruz later this year!
scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu
. Registration now open!
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Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting
https://scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu/
18 days ago
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Happy to share this work from Carlos Camacho de la Maccora that reveals how rates of posterior progenitor addition and anterior vacuolation are balanced across the notochord. With Alberto Ceccarelli and
@osvaldo-chara.bsky.social
we present a model of long-range communication to provide robustness.
19 days ago
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Ben Steventon
Lowe Lab
27 days ago
scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu
. Registration is open for the Santa Cruz Developmental Biology meeting AUGUST 2026. PLEASE SHARE.
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Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting
https://scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu
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Ben Steventon
John Wallingford
3 months ago
The 2026 Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting website is LIVE!!! Go see the incredible list of scientists who will be speaking at the meeting next summer! (...and check the site early next year for info on registration and abstract submission.)
scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu
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Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting
https://scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu/
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Ben Steventon
Helen Matthews
3 months ago
How does Ras signalling affect actin? Some answers in a new review from Joe Tyler & I
@mcb-sheffield.bsky.social
authors.elsevier.com/a/1m8v-3PA3s...
We discuss how Ras proteins coordinate local and global changes to the actin cytoskeleton and contribute to cytoskeletal plasticity in cancer.
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Ben Steventon
Naomi Moris
3 months ago
Lovely little pre-Christmas present to see this out
@natcellbio.nature.com
! Some 🔥 new results in here since the biorvix incl (1) a new RARE-GFP reporter ✳️🙌, (2) additional NMP quantification 🔢, (3) no neural tube patterning on RA inhibition 🙅 etc. Enjoy! 😍
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Modelling co-development between the somites and neural tube in human trunk-like structures - Nature Cell Biology
Makwana, Tilley et al. generate human stem cell-based trunk-like structures approximating Carnegie stage 13–14 of development. They use them to model and study the development of the thoracic and lumbar trunk.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41556-025-01813-8
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Check out this work from
@yuritakahashi.bsky.social
that reveals reciprocal interactions between cell migration and fate specific to drive collective cell invasion. And follow Yuri at the same time
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3 months ago
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Ben Steventon
Joaquina Delas
4 months ago
We have a new lab photo. Busy times in the Delas Lab! Last month Maria and Shaun joined us to start their PhDs. Learn more about our research and our team:
delaslab.com
We will be recruiting another postdoc next year so have a look through our recent work and get in touch if you are interested.
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Sumru Bayin
4 months ago
This was such a fun conversation. Thank you for having me.
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Emília Santos
5 months ago
New preprint led by the brilliant
@aleksandra-marconi.bsky.social
on cichlid brain diversification, fgf8a signalling and regulatory divergence with TEs on the mix! All part of a wonderful collaboration with
@ebablab.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
@camzoology.bsky.social
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Ben Steventon
Niakan Lab
5 months ago
Thrilled to see this published! Well done Ahmed on spearheading a project revealing mitotic errors in human embryos arise much later than anticipated. Thank you to collaborators
@bensteventon.bsky.social
Leila Muresan and all of the wonderful teams at Bourn Hall and Create Fertility clinics!
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Ben Steventon
Niakan Lab
5 months ago
This is an excellent news and views article from Corentin Mollier & Jean-Léon Maître
@maitrejl.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Long-term imaging of cell divisions in human preimplantation embryos - Nature Biotechnology
An optimized approach for live imaging of human embryos enables visualization of mitotic errors during blastocyst development.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-025-02841-3
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Congratulations Ahmed and colleagues in the
@niakanlab.bsky.social
on this beautiful work tracking mitotic errors by live imaging the human embryos!
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5 months ago
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Ben Steventon
Peter AF
5 months ago
In this review
@Andrea-Loreto.bsky.social
and I discuss the breadth of therapeutic potential for the neurodegenerative enzyme SARM1 - Challenges for SARM1 therapeutic inhibition - SARM1 in non-neuronal cells - SARM1 activation for selective peripheral neuroablation.
www.cell.com/trends/pharm...
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Targeting SARM1: from inhibition for neuroprotection to activation for neuroablation
Sterile alpha and TIR motif-containing protein 1 (SARM1),is a central enzyme that drives programmed axon degeneration and has gathered significant interest as a therapeutic target. Despite preclinical...
https://www.cell.com/trends/pharmacological-sciences/fulltext/S0165-6147(25)00219-6
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Ben Steventon
Surfin' NuRD
5 months ago
Planarian
#NuRD
Alert! "the NuRD complex may drive differentiation into somatic lineages in planarians" Yeah it does.
#NuRDIsTheWormyWord
#Chromatin
#Transcription
doi.org/10.3389/frag...
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Frontiers | Systemic identification and characterization of the conserved core NuRD complex in planarian
The nucleosome remodeling and deacetylase (NuRD) complex, well known for its ATP-dependent chromatin remodeling and histone deacetylation activities combined...
https://doi.org/10.3389/fragi.2025.1687668
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Ben Steventon
Osvaldo Chara
5 months ago
Looking for an interesting interdisciplinary PhD on spinal cord regeneration? Join us to explore how tissues rebuild after injury — combining biology, physics, and computational approaches! PIs: Karel Dorey,
@ramandas.bsky.social
, and
@osvaldo-chara.bsky.social
. 👉:
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
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(Bicentenary) Applying a multidisciplinary approach to uncover the mechanisms underpinning successful regeneration of the spinal cord after injury at The University of Manchester on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - (Bicentenary) Applying a multidisciplinary approach to uncover the mechanisms underpinning successful regeneration of the spinal cord after injury at The University of Manchester, listed...
https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/bicentenary-applying-a-multidisciplinary-approach-to-uncover-the-mechanisms-underpinning-successful-regeneration-of-the-spinal-cord-after-injury/?p187350
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Ben Steventon
Cambridge Morphogenesis Seminar Series
5 months ago
Next Monday 20th October, we’re delighted to welcome
@pflenne.bsky.social
for a talk co-hosted with
@tlmcambridge.bsky.social
. For further information and updates, please visit our website!
ucammorphogenesisseries.com
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Ben Steventon
Emma Rawlins
5 months ago
Delighted that Ziqi Dong's PhD paper is out for all to read! Hypoxia is fundamental to normal development, and fascinating! Thanks to all of our co-authors including
@jamesnathanlab.bsky.social
@jellevda.bsky.social
authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...
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Ben Steventon
Developmental Biology
5 months ago
#DBfeature
Research facilities in the UK, France, and Japan maintaining transgenic lines for Avian developmental biology By Lindsay Henderson, Yuya Okuzaki, Christophe Marcelle, Mike McGrew, and Ken-ichi Nishijima
tinyurl.com/4drw4d6a
#SpecialIssue
on Avian model systems
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Ben Steventon
Bethan Clark
5 months ago
I wrote something on developmental biology and disability and put it up on the node last night:
thenode.biologists.com/developmenta...
I've been nervous to share because some of it veers a bit personal but they are thoughts that won't stay quiet. Would love to know what people think about it!
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Developmental Biology and Disability - the Node
Hopeful monsters. Morphospace. Mutation. Natural variation. Mutagenesis screens. Polymorphism. Deformity. Phenotype. Disease. Adaptation. Anomaly.
https://thenode.biologists.com/developmental-biology-and-disability/uncategorized/
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Ben Steventon
Glover lab
5 months ago
🚨 Excited to introduce FuChi (Fucci chicken), the first avian cell cycle reporter line. Thank you to all those who contributed to putting this paper together. I really think it showcases the power and beauty of the chick embryo as a developmental biology model. 🐥 🥚 🔬
@roslininstitute.bsky.social
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Ben Steventon
bioRxiv Developmental Biology
5 months ago
FuChi: A cell cycle biosensor for investigating cell-cycle kinetics during avian development.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.24.678103v1
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Ben Steventon
Barriga Lab
6 months ago
Are you interested on how regenerating tissues transit between stages? Am sharing here our work showing that during
#Xenopus
tail regeneration, tissue stiffening activates a Piezo1-Yap1 mechanosensitive cascade to allow wounded epithelia to transit into regenerative states!
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Ben Steventon
James Briscoe
6 months ago
Great to see this from
@vmetzis.bsky.social
& co published Dissection of CDX2 regulatory elements identifies a repressive element that converts to an enhancer with a nuclear receptor motif switch
www.cell.com/developmenta...
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A dual enhancer-attenuator element ensures transient Cdx2 expression during mouse posterior body formation
Amblard et al. dissect the function of cis-regulatory elements regulating transient Cdx2 expression during mouse caudal body formation. They highlight the requirement of an attenuator, a transiently r...
https://www.cell.com/developmental-cell/fulltext/S1534-5807(25)00361-2
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Ben Steventon
Priti Agarwal
6 months ago
🚨 The International Developmental Mechanics Zoom Seminar Series is back on Sept 25! 🎤 We have an exciting line-up of speakers this fall. See the image below for details 🌐 Website:
sites.google.com/view/devmech...
📝 Interested in presenting? Sign up here:
tinyurl.com/2munv5bv
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Ben Steventon
Development
6 months ago
The Company of Biologists and the British Society for Developmental Biology: a model partnership As part of the
#biologists100
anniversary, Saanjbati Adhikari and Raman Das review the relationship between
@biologists.bsky.social
and
@bsdb.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1242/dev....
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Ben Steventon
School of Biological Sciences
6 months ago
New article out now! Our researchers
@sumrubayin.bsky.social
,
@bensteventon.bsky.social
, and
@storerlab.bsky.social
share key takeaways from a workshop on complex tissue regeneration, highlighting the need for more collaboration and interdisciplinary work. ➡️
journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...
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Building and rebuilding complex tissues: strategic visions from a research-led workshop
ABSTRACT. How complex tissues develop and regenerate post-injury is one of the most fascinating and important processes in biology. Recent technical advances that enable the generation of a quantitati...
https://journals.biologists.com/dev/article/152/20/dev205106/368834/Building-and-rebuilding-complex-tissues-strategic
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Ben Steventon
Rita Mateus
6 months ago
We have a fully funded 3y postdoc position open!!!! Come join us
@mpi-cbg.de
and
@poldresden.bsky.social
to understand the role of Membranes in Controlling Biogenic Crystallization :) this is part of our
#HFSP
funded project with
@noemijimenezrojo.bsky.social
and
@vmonje.bsky.social
! Applications👇
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Thibaut Brunet
6 months ago
Lovely piece on five model organisms for the origin of animal multicellularity and on the community who studies them. It was a pleasure to make a small contribution.
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Sumru Bayin
7 months ago
Excited to share our recent viewpoint with
@storerlab.bsky.social
led by Kirsten Sadler, on epigenetic mechanisms of regenerative resilience. Ageing versus developmental silencing: Answers from the epigenome - Sadler - The FEBS Journal -
febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
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FEBS Press
It is easier for young animals to regenerate damaged or missing tissues. In this Viewpoint, we propose that this is, in part, attributed to epigenetic changes, with chromatin becoming more closed and....
https://febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/febs.70221
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Ben Steventon
Developmental Biology
7 months ago
#DBfeature
🐣❤️ Automated non-invasive laser speckle imaging of the chick heart rate and extraembryonic blood vessels and their response to Nifedipine and Amlodipine drugs by Carol Readhead, Simon Mahler et al
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Ben Steventon
Giulia Paci
7 months ago
Thrilled to share the first story from my postdoc! 🎉 A wonderful experiment + simulations collaboration. In the Drosophila wing, we find that 3D cell shapes affect signalling range and fine-tune developmental patterning
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Thread below ⬇️
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Sergio Menchero
7 months ago
@pnas.org
Front Matter posted a nice summary of our recent work on opossum development
@crick.ac.uk
Thanks Amy McDermott for the highlight, and
@amartinezarias.bsky.social
for the comments. It says '6 min read', so now might be a good time
www.pnas.org/post/journal...
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In opossums, gene expression follows familiar rules but at a strange pace
The arms and heads of opossums (pictured here one day before birth) and other marsupials develop faster than their legs and back bodies. Image credit: Sergio Menchero Fernandez/ Francis Crick Institut...
https://www.pnas.org/post/journal-club/opossums-gene-expression-follows-familiar-rules-but-strange-pace
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Check out this work from
@gserranonajera.bsky.social
and Apolline Delahaye! They show how gastruloids can employ different morphogenetic strategies to set up a body axis. It nicely builds from Guillermo’s PhD work recapitulating gastrulation modes in the chick:
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
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7 months ago
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Ben Steventon
Toby Andrews
7 months ago
Thrilled to bits to see our latest work online in Dev Cell! 🥳 We wanted to know how cells build functional organs with precision🫀🫁📏 Here we show how coupling of cell shape and organ function fine tunes the form and contractile power of the developing
#zebrafish
heart 1/n
tinyurl.com/cell-stretch
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Mechanochemical coupling of cell shape and organ function optimizes heart size and contractile efficiency in zebrafish
Andrews et al. demonstrate that multiscale feedback between mechanical and chemical cues builds a functional heart to support zebrafish embryonic life. Cell recruitment and organ-scale forces drive tr...
https://tinyurl.com/stretchy-cell
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Ben Steventon
Osvaldo Chara
8 months ago
Cells in a regenerating axolotl limb somehow know their place—but how? In our new paper, we trace the dynamics of positional memory, release open-source code to quantify it, and introduce a theoretical framework for proximalisation. 🧵👇 🔗
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
(1/n)
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Ben Steventon
Naomi Moris
7 months ago
Thanks
@cellysally.bsky.social
! It's shaping up to be a great meeting (no pun intended...) so I'm looking forward to it ☺️
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Ben Steventon
Sergio Menchero
8 months ago
Thrilled to share that our latest work on marsupial heterochrony is now online at
@cp-devcell.bsky.social
@cellpress.bsky.social
@lab-turner.bsky.social
@crick.ac.uk
We used scRNAseq to understand the asynchronous progression of developmental programmes in marsupials
www.cell.com/developmenta...
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Marsupial single-cell transcriptomics identifies temporal diversity in mammalian developmental programs
Menchero et al. generate a single-cell transcriptomic atlas in the opossum and show rapid progression of transcriptional programs in specific tissues relative to morphological landmarks. This shift in...
https://www.cell.com/developmental-cell/fulltext/S1534-5807(25)00433-2
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Ben Steventon
BehavEcolPapers
8 months ago
A toolkit for mapping cell identities in relation to neighbors reveals conserved patterning of neuromesodermal progenitor populations
@PLOSBiology.org
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A toolkit for mapping cell identities in relation to neighbors reveals conserved patterning of neuromesodermal progenitor populations
by Matthew French, Rosa P. Migueles, Alexandra Neaverson, Aishani Chakraborty, Tom Pettini, Benjamin Steventon, Erik Clark, J. Kim Dale, Guillaume Blin, Valerie Wilson, Sally Lowell Patterning of cell fates is central to embryonic development, tissue homeostasis, and disease. Quantitative analysis of patterning reveals the logic by which cell-cell interactions orchestrate changes in cell fate. However, it is challenging to quantify patterning when graded changes in identity occur over complex 4D trajectories, or where different cell states are intermingled. Furthermore, comparing patterns across multiple individual embryos, tissues, or organoids is difficult because these often vary in shape and size. This problem is further exacerbated when comparing patterning between species. Here we present a toolkit of computational approaches to tackle these problems. These strategies are based on measuring properties of each cell in relation to the properties of its neighbors to quantify patterning, and on using embryonic landmarks in order to compare these patterns between embryos. We perform detailed neighbor-analysis of the caudal lateral epiblast of E8.5 mouse embryos, revealing local patterning in emergence of early mesoderm cells that is sensitive to inhibition of Notch activity. We extend this toolkit to compare mouse and chick embryos, revealing conserved 3D patterning of the caudal-lateral epiblast that scales across an order of magnitude difference in size between these two species. We also examine 3D patterning of gene expression boundaries across the length of Drosophila embryos. We present a flexible approach to examine the reproducibility of patterning between individuals, to measure phenotypic changes in patterning after experimental manipulation, and to compare of patterning across different scales and tissue architectures.
http://dlvr.it/TM2L2Q
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Ben Steventon
8 months ago
12th Avian Model Systems Meeting
bit.ly/3ZBw2qS
@stowersinstitute.bsky.social
. We will be joined by Marianne Bronner, Olivier Pourquié, Megan Davey, Julie Elie,
@jeromegros.bsky.social
, Carols Lois, Peter Lwigale, Alan Rodrigues, Marcos Simoes-Costa,
@melaniedwhite.bsky.social
and YOU!
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Research Organisms in Flight: Revealing the Roots of Vertebrate Form…
Organized by Tatjana Sauka-Spengler, Ph.D., and Ruth Williams, Ph.D.
https://bit.ly/3ZBw2qS
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Ben Steventon
Lakshmi Balasubramaniam
11 months ago
We are excited to share our recent preprint on how tissue spreading guides extracellular matrix changes during early morphogenesis
@gurdoninstitute.bsky.social
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Ben Steventon
Pierre Haas
8 months ago
Now (finally)
#published
@natcomms.nature.com
: "A multi-tiered mechanical mechanism shapes the early neural plate"
@mpipks.bsky.social
@mpi-cbg.de
A great collaboration of experiment and theory to explain the tissue flows shaping the
#zebrafish
neural plate!
doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61303-1
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Ben Steventon
Jérôme Gros
11 months ago
Registration is now open! Gastrulation Reloaded: Developing, engineering & evolving the body plan 📅 October 14–17, 2025 📍 Paris, France 🗓️ Abstract & early bird deadline: July 15, 2025
www.gastrulation-reloaded.conferences-pasteur.org/home
Exceptional lineup of speakers & many selected talks
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Ben Steventon
British Society for Developmental Biology
8 months ago
Register now for the joint BSDB and Genesis Research Trust (GRT) symposium on Environmental and Metabolic Control of Stem Cells & Development! 4th of December 2025 at the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences, London. Register here:
www.symposia.org.uk/courses/stem...
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Ben Steventon
Emília Santos
9 months ago
Check the beautiful microscopy work at
@camzoology.bsky.social
@cambridgebiosci.bsky.social
with a very special cichlid fish contribution from
@aleksandra-marconi.bsky.social
www.cam.ac.uk/stories/camb...
Check it out!!
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Taking a closer look at life
Incredible images created by our scientists using advanced microscopes are helping to drive biological discovery
https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/cambridge-microscopy-bioscience-platform
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