Connor Powers @cpowers141.bsky.social explaining his super cool project on lipids in regeneration at Fly Meeting #DROS26

Snigdha Mathure @snigdhamathure.bsky.social did a fantastic job presenting her work on debris clearance and epithelial architecture after imaginal disc damage at Fly Meeting this morning! #DROS26

To the next generation friendships 🥂 @snigdhamathure.bsky.social From #midwestDros meeting to #ADRC26 @rachelsmithbolton.bsky.social @tennessenlab.bsky.social #Dros26

This year marked the 43rd installment of the Insect Fear Film Festival, solidifying itself as a unique community event that provides a fun experience for all ages.

So excited to be at Fly Meeting in Chicago! Feels like coming home. #DROS26

Coming in at the wire, I now present you the set bracket for the 2026 #RomComBracket. As usual you can obtain a PDF version of the bracket at bit.ly/RCBrackPDF The Letterboxd list will be updated with the appropriate categories and regions.

Does anyone else wait until the weekend to check grant scores? I’m ok with schrodinger’s impact score: simultaneously amazing and awful until you look.

I have seen the cartoon posted by the Illini Republicans. I am not reposting it because once you have seen it you cannot scrub it out of your brain. It is abhorrent, and has been reported to the appropriate university offices. Please know that it is being widely condemned across campus.

Me after two full days of study section.

I’d like to highlight @felicityhsu.bsky.social ‘s recently publish work in @dev-journal.bsky.social ! She showed that the regeneration blastema consists of concentric zones of differential growth and translation driven by Myc and Tor. journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

I’m on day #2 of this nonsense and it’s refusing to download the PDF … 🤦🏼‍♀️

Final grades submitted!

A huge congratulations to the newly minted Dr. Anish Bose @anishbose.bsky.social on a fantastic thesis defense!! What a great day! A toast to Zelda, Forkhead, the exit from regeneration, and all the mysteries we haven’t yet solved.

Happy to report that the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign academic senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution against the federal “compact” all of us in higher ed have been offered, encouraging our administrators to keep opposing it. #MADC www.senate.illinois.edu/2025-2026/20...

Great departmental retreat! Awards for Connor and Snigdha, plus tug-of-war to wake up between talks. Tagging @snigdhamathure.bsky.social and @cpowers141.bsky.social

A threshold level of JNK activates damage-responsive enhancers via JAK/STAT to promote tissue regeneration Read this #LifelongDevSI #OA Research Article by John W. Quinn, Robin E. Harris and colleagues in our Stem Cells and Regeneration section doi.org/10.1242/dev....

Paper accepted!

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

I’ll be on both sides of this next week - not reviewing and not being reviewed at the same time. It is absurd.

And congratulations to Devan Bianchini for winning first place undergraduate poster presentation!

The lab showed off their findings at the Midwest Drosophila Research Conference!

So great to hear Petra Levin @redrockcity.bsky.social give a seminar at U of I today! Petra was my mentor when I was an undergrad - she taught me how to pipet, she taught me how to streak colonies, and she taught me sterile technique! (Now that I work on flies I do none of those things …)

Reviews are due tomorrow, I’m reading my last one now.

I wrote about the “compact” for higher education newrepublic.com/article/2013...

I submitted a comment.

Continuing efforts to hurt the research pipeline, the very late NSF GFRP solicitation no longer allows 2nd year PhD students to apply. Lots of these students chose not to apply last year because they were told they would have a better change once in their thesis lab www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

Ditto

Very disappointed that second-year students are no longer eligible, as this restriction shuts out my outstanding new student. 😢

We are hiring! The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Department of Cell and Developmental Biology is hiring a faculty member in the area of Aging, broadly defined. Come join us! Deadline is soon! www.nature.com/naturecareer...

Fundamental science producing life-saving treatment www.the-scientist.com/triple-drug-...

The GRFP lives!! (due end of October) www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

I cried when I first saw these graphs.

Hey Drosophilists: Might you maintain Fuyama's original gynogenetic "gyn-F9" (BDSC #5353) stock in your library? The current stock from Bloomington is not producing progeny with ms(k81) males. Thank you!!!

As of today I am not only an Illinois professor, I’m also an Illini Mom! Moved Kid#1 into the dorms today, and he starts classes in the Grainger College of Engineering on Monday. So proud!

Congratulations to Connor Powers @cpowers141.bsky.social for winning a poster award at the MCB retreat as only a second-year student! I think he’s on to something with his project!

Huge congratulations to Anish Bose @anishbose.bsky.social for winning the Development talk award at the International Society for Regenerative Biology meeting!! Presented by Elly Tanaka.

Oh no. This is devastating.

Zelda's Link: The role of gene activity-switching transcription factor Zelda in controlling tissue regeneration 📷 Anish Bose et al‪ @rachelsmithbolton.bsky.social lab @uofillinois.bsky.social in @science.org ScienceAdvances ➡️ bpod.org.uk/archive/2025... with John Ankers

(1/10) I am excited to finally share our work on avian left/right symmetry breaking with you. We reveal a tissue-scale active torque dipole generated at the Hensen’s node, thanks to crazy experiments by Julia @juliapfanzelter.bsky.social and some analysis by me. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Writeup of our latest work on how Zelda controls the exit from regeneration.

Please check it out! In this paper with lead author- Tess Leathers- we visualized the expression of enzymes that regulate the COX-mediated inflammation pathway during embryonic development. We are continuing to study this pathway to discover its early roles in brain and neural crest development!

So excited that our latest work is out! We have been working to understand how damaged tissue exits regeneration and returns to normal gene expression, and found a major role for the pioneer transcription factor Zelda in flies. Kudos to @anishbose.bsky.social @keatonschuster.bsky.social et al!

EPIGENETIC HULK READY TO SMASH AGAIN! GET IN LOSERS!

Very happy to share our latest lab publication! The hard work of @bboumard.bsky.social, Gwenn Le Meur and collaborators! Cell-type-specific nucleotide sharing through gap junctions impacts sensitivity to replication stress in Drosophila: Developmental Cell authors.elsevier.com/a/1lDFi_Yv6z...

Before Trump: “Where did you go to school?” “I went to school in Boston.” After Trump: “Where did you go to school?” “I went to Harvard.”

Shit.

I would like to thank my past self for leaving explicit written instructions for how to assemble text and figures in InDesign.

I think I pull this essay out every year and reread it with fresh eyes.