"Taken together, our rigorous quantification of sleep in phototransduction genetic mutants reveals the key role of visual input in promoting sleep." @kofanchen.biologists.social.ap.brid.gy www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A day sleep promoting role of phototransduction in Drosophila melanogaster

The daily sleep-wake cycle is a conserved behaviour defined by locomotion quiescence and enhanced responsive threshold to sensory stimuli. Both the ci…

sciencedirect.com

Congratulations to Natalia Dominik on receiving a Guarantors of Brain non-clinical postdoctoral fellowship for 3 years from October 2026.

Was delighted to host Tzu-Ting (Tammy) Huang to give a talk and chat to everyone in the @jepsonlabucl.bsky.social at @ucl.ac.uk Institute of Neurology, she gave a fantastic talk for the UCL fly community & was great to reconnect after meeting at CSHL Drosophila Neurobiology programme in 2023! 🪰

journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

Interview with Professor Giampietro Schiavo

ABSTRACT. Giampietro Schiavo is a Professor of Cellular Neuroscience, Deputy Director for strategy at Queen Square Institute of Neurology, academic lead of the Alzheimer Research UK Drug Discovery Ins...

journals.biologists.com

One more pre-print! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... This is an amazing collaboration investigating the mechanisms underlying an intriguing and mysterious neurodegenerative disorder: cerebellar ataxia and sensory neuropathy caused by AAGGG repeat expansions in the RFC1 locus.

CANVAS causing AAGGG repeat expansions cause tissue-specific reduction in RFC1 expression and increase sensitivity to DNA damage

Biallelic AAGGG expansions in Replication Factor Complex Subunit 1 ( RFC1) are associated with cerebellar ataxia, neuropathy, vestibular areflexia syndrome (CANVAS) and are increasingly recognised as ...

biorxiv.org

Also, quick additional post to highlight this fantastic work on novel genetic mutations in the ARHGAP19 gene that cause Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) Disease, now published in @jci.org . www.jci.org/articles/vie...

Pre-print alert! Very happy to highlight two fantastic pre-prints on bioRxiv led by stellar post-doc Simon Lowe @satlowe.bsky.social in the lab. Pre-print no. 1 is a paper I am particularly proud of: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Micro-/nano-plastics accentuate Parkinson's Disease-relevant phenotypes in a Drosophila model

Micro- and nano-plastic (MNP) particles are a ubiquitous environmental contaminant that are increasingly bioaccumulating in human tissues, particularly the brain. MNPs induce mitochondrial defects, ox...

biorxiv.org

My lab studies bacterial infections. We spend a lot of time looking at (or for) species-specific genetic and genomic databases for hosts and microbes. FlyBase is the best of all—there is literally no comparison. Its existence is under threat. Please donate. www.philanthropy.cam.ac.uk/give-to-camb...

Drosophila Genetic Database

The Drosophila Genetic Database, FlyBase, is on the brink of collapse due to the sudden termination of the FlyBase NIH grant, which includes salaries for 5 literature curators based at the University ...

philanthropy.cam.ac.uk

The Inaugural UCL Dystonia Day Symposium was held this week! An amazing line up of speakers, posters and panel discussion. It was fantastic (and important) to be joined by @dystoniauk.bsky.social. A big shout out to @jepsonlabucl.bsky.social for organising. We hope to make this a regular occurrence!

Today is the last chance to register for this exciting Symposium on dystonia mechanisms at UCL! Get your tickets via the link below 👍. www.ucl.ac.uk/ion/events/2...

Inaugural UCL Dystonia Day symposium

The UCL Dystonia Day Symposium seeks to bring basic and clinical researchers together to address this critical question. The Symposium will showcase cutting-edge research from early career researchers...

ucl.ac.uk

🎉We are delighted to congratulate the winner of the 2025 BNA Credibility in Neuroscience Prize: Rob Wykes, @uniofmanchester.bsky.social @epilepsyinst.bsky.social www.bna.org.uk/mediacentre/...

Deadline for the UCL Dystonia Day Symposium is coming up this week! May 1st, 4pm! If you would like to join us to hear about cutting-edge research into dystonia patho-mechanisms, please visit the link below: www.ucl.ac.uk/ion/events/2...

Inaugural UCL Dystonia Day symposium

The UCL Dystonia Day Symposium seeks to bring basic and clinical researchers together to address this critical question. The Symposium will showcase cutting-edge research from early career researchers...

ucl.ac.uk

Very excited by the spectacular range of talks and posters we have planned for the UCL Dystonia Day Symposium on May 14th! Anyone in the neighbourhood who is interested in dystonia, please join us by registering through the link below: www.ucl.ac.uk/ion/events/2...

Worth following @fly-broadcast.bsky.social for new fly papers on PubMed. They deserve a lot more than 50 followers! @bdsc.bsky.social @flybase.bsky.social @fly-eds.bsky.social @dgrc.bsky.social

fly paper broadcast@fly-broadcast.bsky.social · last yr.

PDZD8 promotes autophagy at ER-lysosome membrane contact sites to regulate activity-dependent synaptic growth #Drosophila

Last few days to apply! Post-doctoral position 3 years Wellcome funded in UK To investigate how experience shapes the brain Drosophila neurogenetics, imaging, behaviour Deadline 19/3/25 Pls RP. #drosophila #postdoc #jobs Apply here edzz.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Multiple group leader positions in developmental biology in @ibdm.bsky.social Marseille, at an institute that produces some great work.

We Are Recruiting Group Leaders - IBDM | Institut de Biologie du Développement de Marseille

The Institut de Biologie du Développement de Marseille (IBDM) is inviting applications for group leader positions. We are seeking innovative researchers who aim to address fundamental questions in bio...

staging.ibdm.univ-amu.fr

Just under two weeks to submit talk/poster abstracts for the inaugural UCL Dystonia Day Symposium! www.ucl.ac.uk/ion/events/2....

Inaugural UCL Dystonia Day symposium

The UCL Dystonia Day Symposium seeks to bring basic and clinical researchers together to address this critical question. The Symposium will showcase cutting-edge research from early career researchers...

ucl.ac.uk

Really proud that @abigaildwilson.bsky.social was awarded the best talk prize at the Crick Rare Disease Conference today 👍.

FYI: we will be hosting the inaugural UCL Dystonia Day, on May 14th! This Symposium will showcase the latest research into defining dystonia patho-mechanisms and identifying novel treatments for this debilitating disease. www.ucl.ac.uk/ion/events/2...

Inaugural UCL Dystonia Day symposium

ucl.ac.uk

We report 35 patients with biallelic RBL2 loss-of-function variants presenting with developmental delay/intellectual disability, hypotonia, seizures, microcephaly & brain abnormalities. Drosophila models recapitulate key features & suggest RBL2 re-expression may help rescue neurological symptoms.

Jepson Lab, UCL@jepsonlabucl.bsky.social · 2y ago

Very happy to see our work with Henry Houlden's group and others on RBL2/Rbf mutations linked to a multifaceted neurodevelopmental disorder, published in Brain today. This work was led by super post-doc @gabrielaughey.bsky.social, Elisa Cali, and Reza Maroofian. academic.oup.com/brain/advanc...

Very happy to see our work with Henry Houlden's group and others on RBL2/Rbf mutations linked to a multifaceted neurodevelopmental disorder, published in Brain today. This work was led by super post-doc @gabrielaughey.bsky.social, Elisa Cali, and Reza Maroofian. academic.oup.com/brain/advanc...

Clinical and genetic characterization of a progressive RBL2-associated neurodevelopmental disorder

RBL2 dysfunction, which disrupts cell-cycle gene expression, has been linked to a severe neurodevelopmental disorder. Aughey et al. characterize a cohort o

academic.oup.com

Thrilled to present our latest BioRXiv on brain/body interactions during defensive freezing behaviour! (www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...). You might think that a frozen animal has, well, frozen muscle activity, right? Wrong! Underneath the still surface of a fly, something in the legs is beating… 🧵

First post on BlueSky! Stellar post-doc from the lab @gabrielaughey.bsky.social will be giving a Development Node webinar next week 🙂, describing his work using Drosophila to probe cell-cycle dysregulation in neurodevelopmental disease. Please tune in! thenode.biologists.com/development-...

Development presents... December webinar on gene regulation - the Node

Hear from two early-career researchers studying gene regulation.

thenode.biologists.com