The plasmids I constructed for my paper are now available on Addgene! If anyone feels like reconstructing a synthetic reaction-diffusion circuit in mammalian cells... www.addgene.org/browse/artic... #OpenScience #SharingisCaring

Benjamin Swedlund@benswedlund.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I’m super excited to announce that the work from my postdoc is now openly available on BioRxiv!! A novel reaction-diffusion architecture for engineering self-organized patterns in mammalian cells, from @leonardomorsut.bsky.social lab and friends (1/9) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Check out my first preprint highlight with @prelights.bsky.social! How cells read the room - coordinated symmetry breaking and proportional cell fate allocation in neural organoids, from Hannah T Stuart et al. Lovely story with solid back-and-forth between modelling and perturbative experiments.

Minimal essential requirements for neural tube self-organisation - preLights

How cells read the room - coordinated symmetry breaking and proportional cell fate allocation in neural organoids

prelights.biologists.com

New Toettchlab paper alert! Harrison Oatman just published his beautiful work combining software design for "smart" microscopy+optogenetics and some really beautiful work understanding EGFR-driven collective cell migration. www.cell.com/cell-systems...

The STRAIGHT-IN (Dual) kit is now available via @addgene.bsky.social! 🧬 A complete 24-plasmid toolkit for installing up to two orthogonal CLYBL landing pads, DASIT-based enrichment without FACS, and efficient large DNA integration in human cells. Link: www.addgene.org/kits/gallowa... 🧵

Beautiful, crazy #sciart

Manuel Thery@manuelthery.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Is there a size limit for cells ? How can cells replicate inside the architecture of their environment? Why do cells self-destroy ? This 15-minute movie vimeo.com/1173229237 shows our 2026 edition of the Living Architectures project at the @museeorsay.bsky.social

1/ 🧬🔬 How does one cell become an entire animal? We can now film it in 3D 🐟, but turning those movies into accurate cell tracks is brutally hard. Enter our new #Kaggle challenge: $60K prize pool, to help crack 3D+time cell tracking at scale! 🧵👇 www.kaggle.com/competitions... @biohub.org

«The biases do not disappear; they get encoded into the model and then laundered into outputs that feel objective because they are numerical. Replacing one prestige filter with another that is harder to see or challenge is not progress toward equity in science; it’s the opposite. »

Ran Blekhman@blekhman.bsky.social · last mo.

I wanted to like QED's new 1% preprint ranking. I really did. But the more I looked at the data, the more uncomfortable it made me. Here is my full peer review. open.substack.com/pub/blekhman...

Ooooo, this is cool 😎 Pre-print highlights & insights by content experts brought to us by @biologists.bsky.social?! Yes, please! 🙌 Delving through the DevBio picks now 👀 🧪 prelights.biologists.com/prelists/pre...

preLighters’ choice – Handpicked DevBio preprints - preLights

prelights.biologists.com

MadScientist@mads100tist.bsky.social · last mo.

Don't use slop. Someone's trying to make money out of you and your colleagues and your friends. Do yourself a favor and read 100% human-crated content in @prelights.bsky.social Upload preprints. Read preprints. Cite preprints. Fuck AI 🧪

AI’s top 1% preprints «provides little information on why we should read those preprints or how relevant they might be to any individual». AI can be useful to find gaps between data and claims, cluster preprints per topic, or for author support - NOT to replace IF with more biased and opaque metrics

Rippling Ideas@ripplingideas.bsky.social · last mo.

The qed 1% club controversy highlights a difficult road ahead for openRxiv as they embark on the next decade of trying to bring about a bigger preprint ecosystem. But it also raises questions about the motivations of some open science "advocates"

I know it seems like a heretical idea, but one way to figure out if a preprint is really interesting (to you) is... to read the preprint. Then, in the spirit of sharing, send a note to authors: a simple kudos or a more detailed question. I do this a dozen times a year. It's awesome. Try it.

One goal of "understanding-by-building" is to test the sufficiency of established models to generate predicted phenotypes in the messy context of living cells. In my postdoc, I asked whether simple two-component circuits could generate self-organised patterns in mammalian cells. 1/4

Supplemental Movie 1

Timelapse microscopy of L929 mouse fibroblasts engineered with a synthetic reaction-diffusion circuit, composed of synNotch-mediated juxtacrine activation and paracrine inhibition (JAPI), showing the ...

vimeo.com

One goal of "understanding-by-building" is to test the sufficiency of established models to generate predicted phenotypes in the messy context of living cells. In my postdoc, I asked whether simple two-component circuits could generate self-organised patterns in mammalian cells. 1/4

Supplemental Movie 1

Timelapse microscopy of L929 mouse fibroblasts engineered with a synthetic reaction-diffusion circuit, composed of synNotch-mediated juxtacrine activation and paracrine inhibition (JAPI), showing the ...

vimeo.com

Makes me sad more people don't know about @reviewcommons.org and the incredible system they've built! Get peer reviews independent of a journal, then submit with reviews in hand to a stable of excellent journals from across non-profit and society publishers. Review Commons: good for what ails ya.

This week's job opportunities on the Node: PhD Positions in Tissue Formation and Spatial Omics at @yinanwan.bsky.social's lab thenode.biologists.com/jobs/phd-pos...

PhD Positions in Tissue Formation and Spatial Omics - the Node

The Wan Laboratory at the Center for Integrative Genomics (CIG), University of Lausanne, invites applications from highly motivated students interested in developmental biology, quantitative biology, ...

thenode.biologists.com

Beautiful piece on how field-specific journals with high ethical standards, such as Development, don’t try to « Game » the impact factor system - and practical steps to move away from this inherently flawed metric as a researcher (see Box 2)

James Briscoe@jamesbriscoe.bsky.social · 2mo ago

As Editor of @dev-journal.bsky.social I get asked "What are you doing about your impact factor?" In our new editorial we say: Ask not what Dev can do for the impact factor. Ask what you can do for Dev's IF The IF is about how we all cite, review & assess each other's work doi.org/10.1242/dev....

www.cell.com/cell-systems... Great review from Pulin Li's lab on synthetic developmental biology - the knowledge gained through bottom-up reconstruction of developmental processes is not just how the embryo works, but also how multicellular systems CAN possibly work to generate form and function.

Discovering what is possible: How synthetic biology illuminates development

While embryos have long served as the foundation of developmental biology, in vitro reconstruction of developmental modules has provided insight into their operational rules and limits. Using three re...

cell.com

Emoticons: E9.5 mouse embryo sections through otocyst, hindbrain and pharyngeal endoderm resemble eyes, nose, and smile of an emoticon. 📸 Image credit: Ankita Thawani (Baylor College of Medicine) #FluorescenceFriday #Embryology #DevelopmentalBiology #Microscopy #ScienceArt✨ 🧬

The peer-review system needs an update. Biology Open did a cool experiment - contract reviewers in advance, and compensate them for a job well done. The results: it accelerates the process without loss of quality! Very promising. It’s not like for-profit journals can’t afford it…

Daniel Gorelick@danielgorelick.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Paying peer reviewers works. Expanded Fast & Fair experiment @biologyopen.bsky.social: • 5.5 vs 37.7 working days to decision with reviews • ~3 vs ~9 reviewer invitations per manuscript • no reduction in editor-assessed review quality • similar acceptance rates www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I’m super excited to announce that the work from my postdoc is now openly available on BioRxiv!! A novel reaction-diffusion architecture for engineering self-organized patterns in mammalian cells, from @leonardomorsut.bsky.social lab and friends (1/9) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Updated GRC Developmental Biology 2027 flyer/poster with the latest roster of invited speakers. 🌱🐟🧬🐭🪰🧪🧫 Come join us to discuss the latest in #devbio at the Renaissance Tuscany Il Ciocco Resort, Jan 17-22 ! #GRCDevBio2027

Christian Mosimann@chrmosimann.bsky.social · 3mo ago

*** GRC Developmental Biology 2027 - Jan 17-22 @ Renaissance Tuscany Il Ciocco Resort *** Join us for a fabulous 2027 Gordon Conference on all things #devbio & the trainee-led GRS! More info on registration, abstract submission, et al., here: www.grc.org/developmenta... #GRCDevBio2027 🧬🐭🐟🪰🌱❤️

A novel reaction-diffusion architecture for engineering self-organized patterns in mammalian cells https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.24.727552v1

I’m super excited to announce that the work from my postdoc is now openly available on BioRxiv!! A novel reaction-diffusion architecture for engineering self-organized patterns in mammalian cells, from @leonardomorsut.bsky.social lab and friends (1/9) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Some of the most wonderful Attenborough pictures here: www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

A life in pictures: Celebrating Attenborough at 100

As the British naturalist celebrates a milestone birthday, we take a look at how his work has shaped science.

nature.com

Realizing publishers profit off your work hits hard. You do the research, write, review for free… and it sits behind a paywall. Learn the system, share your work when you can, and stay focused on why you started. Your work still matters.

What should Europe do when demand for #ERC funding keeps rising? Restrict access or invest in excellence? Please read our open letter calling for reconsideration of the ERC 2027 resubmission restrictions & for constructive alternatives that preserve openness Consider to share & sign - see below 🧪

#erc | Johanna Joyce

What should Europe do when demand for its most successful frontier research programme keeps rising? Restrict access, or invest in the excellence it has created? A new open letter, spearheaded by Sara...

linkedin.com

How can we hope to understand organismal development when it is controlled by huge, complex networks of interacting genes? 
One option is to move away from molecular details and focus on learning representations and rules. Check out the new perspective from me and @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social

James Briscoe@jamesbriscoe.bsky.social · 5mo ago

New Perspective form Rory Maizels & me: "Gene regulatory networks: from correlative models to causal explanations" Gene regulatory networks are supposed to give us mechanistic explanations of development, so why are we drowning in 'hairballs' of statistical correlations? rdcu.be/e7zx7

So when do authors preprint? Many do long before they submit to a journal (to get feedback to improve the work?); many submit around the same time (just want the work out?). Only a minority are submitting once the paper is under review [evidence against claims by some detractors]. 3/n

We are inviting experienced researchers to apply to become Preprint Editors, a new type of editorial role responsible for handling our 'In preprints' articles and forging links with preprint literature. #prepints Learn more and apply before 30 March 2026: journals.biologists.com/dev/pages/pr...

Applications are open for @dev-journal.bsky.social 2026 Pathway to Independence (PI) programme, supporting postdocs applying for group leader positions: Mentoring Profile raising Leadership training Network building Spread the word... www.biologists.com/grants/devel...

Development's Pathway to Independence Programme

Our grants support and encourage the sharing of knowledge throughout the community by facilitating international collaboration, event attendance and the organisation of scientific meetings, conference...

biologists.com

How are preprints perceived and evaluated in the life sciences from a PI's perspective? Check our my podcast episode through the @asapbio.bsky.social Fellow's program, where I interviewed @leonardomorsut.bsky.social about his perspective on the topic! My key takeaways: 1/6

ASAPbio@asapbio.bsky.social · 8mo ago

ASAPbio Fellow Benjamin Swedlund @benswedlund.bsky.social interviewed USC Assistant Professor Leonardo Morsut @leonardomorsut.bsky.social about the recognition of preprints in the life sciences. 🔬 🧪 buff.ly/TeWEkBi