🥳🥳🥳 Pretty fab start to 2026!!

Lucky year?! #galettedesrois

Seasons greetings!

So excited to share this as a new junior PI: My brand-new lab website! 🎉🪰🌀 www.bischofflab.com Please pass it on to young, motivated researchers looking for PhD positions 😊 And for the #FluorescenceFriday community: don’t miss the SciArt Gallery! #CellBio #DevBio #PhDjob #PhDposition #Science

How do new centromeres evolve while staying compatible with the division machinery? Discover it in our new Nature paper! We show centromeres transition gradually via a mix of drift, selection, and sex, reaching new states that still work with the kinetochore. 👉 doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09779-1

In this week's DB unit seminar @embl.org, Eva Pillai @evapillai.bsky.social , a postdoc in the Arendt, Diz-Muñoz @diz-lab.bsky.social and Brunet groups @thibautbrunet.bsky.social , shared insights on the role of cell surface mechanics in multicellularity, using choanoflagellates as a model organism

NEW pub in @science.org 🥳 Is it sponges (panels A & B) or comb jellies (C & D) that root the animal tree of life? For over 15 years, #phylogenomic studies have been divided. We provide new evidence suggesting that... 🔗: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

An Asgard archaeon with internal membrane compartments Brilliant study led by @fmacleod.bsky.social and Andriko von Kügelgen. Tight collaboration with @buzzbaum.bsky.social and lab. Congrats to all authors! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Asgard archaea are full of surprises, this time we found (tiny) microtubules (snapshots of microtubule evolution?!) - Check out our new paper on the cytoskeleton of Lokiarchaeum ossiferum: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

🚨Our collaboration with @centriolelab.bsky.social & @gautamdey.bsky.social is out today in @cp-cell.bsky.social We show that #Expansion #Microscopy is a broad-spectrum modality for Euks, enabling 3D phenotypic maps rooted to phylogeny. #ProtistsOnSky #SciComm #SciSky www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Exciting day for the lab: our 1rst paper is officially out in @currentbiology.bsky.social 🥳 Wonderful collaboration wt @gautamdey.bsky.social showing how Cryo-ExM achieves consistent immunostaining in diverse diatoms, from the lab and the natural environment 1/n #ProtistsOnSky tinyurl.com/2zxaund7

Beautiful autumn morning @embl.org Heidelberg

First neurons didn’t appear overnight. We trace their roots to ancient secretory cells - showing how lifestyle & behavior shaped the evolution of first synapses.🧠🌊 #Evolution #Neuroscience Our latest in @natrevneuro.nature.com Link: rdcu.be/eMX3E @jeffcolgren.bsky.social @msarscentre.bsky.social

Latest from ours: www.cell.com/cell-reports... This is two stories in one: a case study/cautionary tale on developing genetic tools in new organisms, and the first hint at a gene regulatory network for choanoflagellate multicellular development (which turn out to involve a Hippo/YAP/ECM loop!) A 🧵

Deeply saddened by Sir John Gurdon’s passing. A pioneer in developmental biology and Nobel laureate with endless curiosity and humility (I’ll never forget the day he asked me -then a student- to teach him a protocol in the institute bearing his name!). Elegant science, fabulous hair… truly a legend!

Automatic filament tracing in 3D data is now only a few clicks (or one macro) away! In the amazing #BigTrace FIJI plugin by @ekatrukha.bsky.social 🤩 My workflow will be to autotrace and then manually correct the autotraces, reducing the time for our tracing significantly!

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New short paper from our lab @currentbiology.bsky.social, in which we discover of a new mode of cell motility for choanoflagellates: flagellar gliding. www.cell.com/current-biol... - A 🧵

🧠🦈Excited to present our latest work🧠🦈Interested in brain evolution? And shark embryos? Then read on… Our work sheds light on the deep origins of our brain’s most complex regions.

Beautiful story that combined mechanobiology, evolution, and the power of fly (opto)genetics to make sense of the cephalic furrow. It was a pleasure writing the News & Views. No doubt this is still just the beginning for the field of mechano-evo-devo! Hats off to all involved

For some three billion years, unicellular organisms ruled Earth. Then, around one billion years ago, a new chapter of life began go.nature.com/3JyRV4S

Want to acquire #ExM images like this and help us understand the true extent of cytoskeletal diversity across the tree of life? This position might be for you! embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/j... With @dudinlab.bsky.social @embl.org @biology-unige.bsky.social @moorefound.bsky.social

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

Paper accepted!!

Our new paper on structure and growth of Porpita porpita - rdcu.be/etcY6 . Like Velella and Physalia, this is a colonial cnidarian that floats at the surface of the Ocean. The whole colony arises form a single embryo through clonal growth that gives rise to many specialized bodies.

Morphogenesis & Organogenesis! Part 1 (full) in the comments 👇 Comment if you'd like to be added (regardless of age or career stage!) Please post your own biology-related starter packs using #BioStarterPacks 🧬🔬🪰🐟🐁🌱

1/27 We have a new paper out! Turns out that snowflake yeast have been hiding a secret from us - they've evolved a (very!) crude circulatory system. Not with blood vessels or a heart, but through spontaneous fluid flows powered by their metabolism. 🧪🔬 www.science.org/doi/full/10....

How did life begin, and why does it matter today? Excited to have contributed to this ASM @asm.org report, supported by @MooreFound, exploring 3 key steps in Earth’s history - from simple cells to complex life- and what it means for future science. Read more: asm.org/reports/earl...

Excited to share our study on sailing siphonophores, AKA bluebottles or man-o'-war! 🌊 we received hundreds of samples from scientists around the world, part of a huge effort to sequence genomes and test for multiple species 🧬 out today in @currentbiology.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.cu... 🦑🧪📌

Thank you Dionn Hargreaves, Sarah Woolner & @dev-journal.bsky.social for highlighting our @sudimukherjee.bsky.social @franzelab.bsky.social preprint! Chuffed to see it engaged with through fresh eyes! 🙌 Interested in how mechanical & chemical signals shape tissue development? Give it a look! 🧠🐸⚙️

When in the tropics, we sample! #choanoflagellate from Malaysia 🇲🇾 -a treat from a lovely coastal walk, spotted by the eagle-eyed @jujumathieu.bsky.social #protistsonsky

Every organism's research community aspires to have a resource like FlyBase. Let’s help!

Our brittle star patterning study is now out at EvoDevo! 🥳 doi.org/10.1186/s132... @lowelab.bsky.social

🚨New preprint Glad to share my postdoc work on the role of the hypoblast in primitive streak induction! Discover how live imaging observations led us to revisit the molecular mechanisms governing embryonic axis induction Thanks to @jeromegros.bsky.social and all co-authors! doi.org/10.1101/2025...

🔷 Jacob L. Steenwyk (UC Berkeley): Rooting the animal tree 🔷 Alex de Mendoza (Queen Mary University): The emergence of Sox and POU transcription factors predates the origins of animal stem cells #ChoanoCon2025

Session 5: Structure, Phylogeny & Gene Regulation 🔷 Margarita Skamnelou (IBE, Spain): Diversity and Conservation in Choanoflagellate Behavior and Extracellular Structures 🔷 Deepak Krishnamurthy (UC Berkeley) Biophysics of microscale adhesion and assembly in Loricate choanoflagellates

And the last day: 🔷Keynote lecture : @floravincent.bsky.social– Marine microbial interactions across scales 🔷Nicole King (UC Berkeley/HHMI, USA) – The secret lives of choanoflagellates #ChoanoCon2025

Best talk Prize was Margarita Skamnelou!

And best poster for Núria & Max Coyle!!!

The End! Thanks all for joining us🙌🏻🙌🏻 Hope everyone enjoy this amazing week💚💚 #ChoanoCon2025

Some love for choanoflagellates from @multicellgenome.bsky.social in #ChoanoCon2025 Spectacular talk!

Nice and interesting talk by @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social at the #ChoanoCon25. Choanos are cool! @thibautbrunet.bsky.social

Great talk by James Gahan @jgahan.bsky.social on gene regulation in S.rosetta on the second day of the #ChoanoCon25

Great talk by Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo @multicellgenome.bsky.social at #ChoanoCon25 convincing us of the importance of studying more unicellular relatives of animals.

Great talk by Marina Carmona on the known unknowns. #ChoanoCon25 #multicellularity @multicellgenome.bsky.social

May the force be with you. At Eva Pillai's talk: how ERM2 affects choanos movement. #choanoflagellates #ChoanoCon25 @evapillai.bsky.social

🔷: @frutag33.bsky.social Choanoflagellate stress response signaling 🔷 Marina Carmona Rivas (Institute of Evolutionary Biology, Spain): Looking for the light in the sea darkness: in-situ identification of a new unicellular relative of animals in marine environmental samples

Session 3: 🔷 Koryu Kin (Juntendo University, Japan): Pushing the boundary of premetazoan multicellularity 🔷 @multicellgenome.bsky.social (Institute of Evolutionary Biology, Spain): Models to study the origin of animal development #ChoanoCon2025

🔷 Alain García de las Bayonas(UC Berkeley): Cupidon GPCR regulates mating in animal relatives 🔷 Dinah Davison (Kansas State): Rapid evolution of differentiation in volvocine algae #ChoanoCon2025

Session 3: Evolution & Differentiation 🔷 @jgahan.bsky.social (University of Galway): Chromatin & cell differentiation in choanoflagellates 🔷 Barry Leadbeater (Birmingham): A complex loricate choanoflagellate gets a new name