We are all so saddened by the tragic passing of our colleague and friend Marta. A shock to our community. We will cherish her memory, which is filled with enthusiasm, generosity, and collegiality.

In light of the tragic news that Marta passed away, here is a piece she wrote that really resonates. I also recommend everyone to read her science. Hopefully she continues to inspire many more scientists. Condolences to her family, friends and colleagues. www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/groups/shahb...

a profound silence

Join us as Sustainability Officer to develop & share best practice for sustainable conferencing, manage & organise sustainability data collection, analysis and reporting, and lead the Company’s review of SGDs. Closing date for applications: 7 September. www.biologists.com/about-us/wor...

Work for us

Explore career opportunities at The Company of Biologists. Join a team passionate about science, publishing and community support.

biologists.com

Do you work with microscopy images and segment to quantify or track? Do you study cell biology? development? Gather round! Let me tell you about FOCUS-3D, a segmentation algorithm that is fast, accurate and can be used on any model. We used it here to study zebrafish development. 🧪 (thread)

FOCUS‑3D: Robust, generalizable volumetric cell segmentation for three‑dimensional fluorescence microscopy

Understanding how cells establish spatial organization within tissues is a fundamental question in life sciences. While modern three-dimensional fluorescence microscopy captures large-volume tissue ar...

biorxiv.org

So happy & excited to see our paper out in @plosbiology.org ! 🎉 With contributions from many past & present members of the Lowell & Wilson labs @edinuni-irr.bsky.social , and a fantastic collaboration with @osvaldo-chara.bsky.social & @alberto-ceccarelli.bsky.social. 🧵👇(1/10)

PLOS Biology@plosbiology.org · 2mo ago

Neuromesodermal progenitor cells generate multiple tissues. This study by @abinagui.bsky.social @edinuni-irr.bsky.social @osvaldo-chara.bsky.social @cellysally.bsky.social &co maps their functional heterogeneity and links TF expression thresholds to #cellFate. 🧪 #AcademicSky plos.io/4xWA8Ze

We have written a statement in support of Ghent Uni's decision to suspend Nathan Cofnas. We resist attempts to frame this as a punishment for "whistleblowing" or censorship of "controversial research". We invite all academics who share our views to sign our letter. forms.gle/qwN8xzEM5C7Q...

Open letter on the suspension of Nathan Cofnas at Ghent University

We, colleagues of Nathan Cofnas - supported by many colleagues internationally - want to respond to the negative and incorrect framing of Ghent University’s decision to suspend Nathan Cofnas. With th...

forms.gle

Neuromesodermal progenitor cells generate multiple tissues. This study by @abinagui.bsky.social @edinuni-irr.bsky.social @osvaldo-chara.bsky.social @cellysally.bsky.social &co maps their functional heterogeneity and links TF expression thresholds to #cellFate. 🧪 #AcademicSky plos.io/4xWA8Ze

It was alleged that Jason Arday was an academic fraud mainly based on accusation of plagiarism initially moved by Nathan Cofnas. I have compared Arday's thesis with the one he's been accused of copying and found a bare 4.2% similarity.

1/ Very excited to share the first publication from my lab! In this work, we developed an efficient strategy to precisely mutate mammalian histone genes in their native genomic context using CRISPR prime editing: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Identifying critical lysines in mammalian histone H3 with high-throughput CRISPR prime editing - Nature Genetics

This study uses a precise and efficient clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) prime editing system to substitute lysine residues in histone H3, individually or in combinat...

nature.com

Working on stem cell biology? Our expert Academic Editor, Aryeh Warmflash (@warmflashlab.bsky.social), handles articles on this topic so send your article our way. It's FREE to publish in JCS and we're not-for-profit. Find out more: journals.biologists.com/jcs/pages/re... #stemcells #ISSCR2026

New in @dev-journal.bsky.social: how tissue shape tells cells what to become Using human stem-cell neuruloids, we show how that physical boundaries encode positional information that drives cell fate patterning in a model of trunk formation A thread 🧵 journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Boundary constraints can determine pattern emergence

Summary: A reaction-diffusion mechanism recapitulates pattern emergence in an in vitro model of neuromesodermal progenitors under a variety of boundary and geometrical perturbations.

journals.biologists.com

You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone... A good read, on the importance of curiosity driven research www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Discovery is not the opposite of application - Nature Reviews Physics

Restructuring research funding as a choice between discovery and application gets the economics wrong, the evidence wrong and the people wrong.

nature.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 · 5mo 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....

Yet another important benefit of having not-for-profit publishers within the scientific publisher ecosystem. They can do interesting (sometimes risky) experiments, testing innovations that aim to benefit the scientific community rather than enriching shareholders. Up with this sort of thing!

Daniel Gorelick@danielgorelick.bsky.social · 5mo 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...

SO INTERESTING! #PaperThemeTune: Careful With That Axolotl Eugene, by Pink Floyd www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RnF...

Pink Floyd - Careful With That Axe, Eugene (Live at Brighton Dome)

YouTube video by Pink Floyd

youtube.com

Wouter Masselink@woutermasselink.bsky.social · 5mo ago

🚨 New preprint 🚨 Massive shoutout to first author @abinagui.bsky.social !!! The common view is that regenerative competence declines with age. We challenge this idea by showing that axolotl tail regenerative competence is emerges during a defined embryonic window. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

This is a wonderful opportunity, open to postdocs too! Together with @rocha-lab.bsky.social we’ll be organising one on “Bridging Scales and Disciplines to Understand Robust Development” next year. More info soon - registration will open in July!

The Company of Biologists@biologists.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Last few days left to submit your idea for a Workshop for our 2028 programme. Send us your proposal by 29 May 2026 at www.biologists.com/workshops/pr... #BiologistsWorkshops

Deadline extended- still time to apply! Please spread the word.

Stem Cell Summer School@stemcellsummer.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Still time to apply! Deadline extended to 25th May! This is an enriching, immersive, interactive week of talks and discussions with leaders in the field. A brilliant oppportunity for PhD students, postdoc, new PIs. See our testimonials: www.stemcellsummerschool.org/testimonials Spread the word!

Developmental biology bringing together regenerative biology, neurobiology, mathematical modelling, evo-devo and much more to Edinburgh! 19-22 April 2027 Save the date!

British Society for Developmental Biology@bsdb.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Save the date! The 2027 BSDB Spring Meeting will take place on 19 - 22 April in Edinburgh. An exciting programme with a fantastic lineup of speakers showcasing developmental biology across scales! More details soon!

that’s Elon Musk FRS

Josiah Mortimer@josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Nigel Farage tells The Sun's Harry Cole that Elon Musk offered to give Reform loads of money "if we said certain things" and he refused. "I can't be bought." Two things: 1. This is an allegation of attempted bribery. Very serious. 2. It shows the obvious: donors expect something for their money.

Deadline extended- still time to apply! Please spread the word.

Stem Cell Summer School@stemcellsummer.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Still time to apply! Deadline extended to 25th May! This is an enriching, immersive, interactive week of talks and discussions with leaders in the field. A brilliant oppportunity for PhD students, postdoc, new PIs. See our testimonials: www.stemcellsummerschool.org/testimonials Spread the word!

Reminder! Application deadline Friday 8th May

Stem Cell Summer School@stemcellsummer.bsky.social · 8mo ago

We are delighted to announce that we are now open for applications for 2026 summer school Dates: 11th - 18th September 2026 Deadline for applications: 8th May See our website for info on how to apply.. and to check out our stellar speaker list! www.stemcellsummerschool.org/apply 🧪

This video sums up just some of the reasons I feel proud to publish our work in Company of Biologists journals.

The Company of Biologists@biologists.bsky.social · 6mo ago

The Company of Biologists is a not-for-profit publisher that exists to support biologists and inspire biology. This video tells you more about our aims and activities.

“Conferences were much more exciting as a young, early-career researcher, when every contact felt like an instant friend and every new city, a gift” My most recent blog post on the effect of age on travel perceptions occamstypewriter.org/mindthegap/2...

New Pre-Print Alert! Evolving initial conditions: an alternative developmental route to morphological diversity with Shannon Taylor and @jamesehammond.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Reminder! Application deadline Friday 8th May

Stem Cell Summer School@stemcellsummer.bsky.social · 8mo ago

We are delighted to announce that we are now open for applications for 2026 summer school Dates: 11th - 18th September 2026 Deadline for applications: 8th May See our website for info on how to apply.. and to check out our stellar speaker list! www.stemcellsummerschool.org/apply 🧪

Had so much fun at @bsdb.bsky.social a few weeks go and am very excited about all the upcoming stories I saw. Check out the #preprint list I've collated from the meeting, now on @prelights.bsky.social👇 prelights.biologists.com/prelists/bsd... And please do let me know if there are any I missed 👀

BSDB Spring Meeting: Molecules to Morphogenesis - preLights

prelights.biologists.com

preLights@prelights.bsky.social · 7mo ago

From molecules to morphogenesis Discover a curated #preList of preprints presented at the BSDB Spring Meeting @bsdb.bsky.social - highlighting exciting new research in developmental biology Explore this #preprints list prepared by @ingridtsang.bsky.social ⬇️ prelights.biologists.com/prelists/bsd...

Congratulations to the @dev-journal.bsky.social 2025 Outstanding Paper nominations, & special mention to the winner by Yang et al doi.org/10.1242/dev.... For the top three nominations and an interview with the winners see: journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Just look at this graph (Fig 5A,B from Koeber et al). Amazing. Congratulations to the Pollard lab and all authors. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I illustrated my way through the @bsdb.bsky.social Spring Meeting a couple weeks ago - here's my illustrated summary of the conference! I sketched (almost) all the speakers and glimpses of the science that made it such a great few days.