🪲🪰 Our preprint is out! This was a team effort with @wolframponisch.bsky.social, @matthewabenton.bsky.social and Ewa Paluch. We asked whether Drosophila and Tribolium use the same cell behaviours to fold their embryos during gastrulation. 🧵👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Morphospace analysis reveals divergent cellular behaviours driving tissue internalisation during insect gastrulation

During gastrulation, embryonic epithelia undergo large-scale remodelling to internalise the mesoderm. Whether the cellular mechanisms underlying these tissue deformations are conserved across species ...

biorxiv.org

Archaeaophiles! Last chance to sign up as a virtual attendee for MBoA2026. It’s cheap and you will have access to all the talks include our archaea@50 celebration with a special guest: meetings.embo.org/event/26-arc...

Our study on shape diversity in cnidarians is now published. The final version includes extensive new data that substantially extend the original bioRxiv preprint. Congrats to everyone who contributed to this work! www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... @embl.org

Deciphering mechanical determinants of morphological evolution

A comparative analysis of cnidarian larval morphogenesis combined with active surface theory identifies a set of mesoscale mechanical modules that predict species-specific shapes. Manipulating these m...

cell.com

Excited to share my first preprint from my PhD w/ @justinmcrocker.bsky.social. We show that cell type-specific regulatory dominance promotes robustness and evolutionary innovation through interallelic transcriptional hubs, potentially expanding the mutational paths available to diploids. (1/18)

bioRxiv Evolutionary Biology@biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Interallelic cis-regulatory dominance promotes robustness and evolutionary innovation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.17.712157v1

Archaea hit prime time: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Archaea

How a discovery in the 1970s changed the theory of the origin of complex life on earth.

bbc.co.uk

Thank you @mollyherring.bsky.social for the stunning showcase 😍 Like what you see? Come ExM with us! Let’s flood the internet with microbial marvels 🦠 #ProtistsOnSky #MicroEvoSky 🧪🔬🌍 @dudinlab.bsky.social @centriolelab.bsky.social @moorefound.bsky.social @embl.org @erc.europa.eu @embo.org

Quanta Magazine@quantamagazine.org · 6mo ago

Even with the largest zoom on a classic compound optical system, scientists struggle to make sense of finer details. Microbiologists are turning to an unexpected source to clear things up: a moisture-absorbing material found in diapers. www.quantamagazine.org/expansion-mi...

#LivingArchitectures is a glorious convergence of science and art. @manuelthery.bsky.social and the #CytoMorphoLab turn the Orsay into a living canvas - its walls and ceilings pulsating with life. Cytoskeletal asters bloom. Cells stream, pause and surge. Magnifique!

🥳🥳🥳 Pretty fab start to 2026!!

Franze Lab@franzelab.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Paper alert: Our study led by @evapillai.bsky.social and @sudimukherjee.bsky.social showing that mechanical properties of the #brain actively shape the molecular landscape during development and #axonpathfinding is finally out! www.nature.com/articles/s41... @pdncambridge.bsky.social @fau.de @MPZPM

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...

Pilhofer Lab 🦠❄️🔬@pilhoferlab.bsky.social · last yr.

Asgard archaea have actin - but what about microtubules? Where do they come from? 🧐 Our new paper www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... by @xujwet.bsky.social & @florianwollweber.bsky.social, in collaboration with the Schleper & Wieczorek labs, describes tiny Asgard microtubules! #TeamTomo #ArchaeaSky 1/6

🚨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

The evolutionary origins of synaptic proteins and their changing roles in different organisms across evolution

Nature Reviews Neuroscience - Recent studies have shed further light on the evolutionary origins of chemical synapses, In this Review, Colgren and Burkhardt explore how ancient proteins were...

rdcu.be

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!

University of Cambridge@cam.ac.uk · 10mo ago

It is with great sadness that the University shares the news of the death of Professor Sir John Gurdon, founder of the @gurdoninstitute.bsky.social Read our tribute to the visionary Nobel Laureate and watch an interview from 2012, just after he won: https://bit.ly/4mM8o3r

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!

Eugene Katrukha 🇺🇦@ekatrukha.bsky.social · 11mo ago

New release of #BigTrace plugin is out. Together with @aafkegros.bsky.social from Simone Köhler group we added a fully automatic tracing mode. + more macro functions and bug fixes github.com/ekatrukha/Bi...

🤯🤩

Thibaut Brunet@thibautbrunet.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Most striking, in some instances of spontaneous flagellar detachment, the flagellum can glide on its own - mercilessly leaving the cell body behind, stabbing it on the way if need be (don't do this at home).

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 🧵

Flagellar gliding in choanoflagellates

Freire-Delgado and Brunet discover a new mode of cell motility in choanoflagellates, the closest relatives of animals. Under mild confinement, choanoflagellate move over surfaces without cell deformat...

cell.com

🧠🦈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

@paveltomancak.bsky.social · 11mo ago

We are all super happy and proud to see our work on the function and evolution of the #cephalic #furrow published in @nature.com. Let me say a few things about the background and history of this work on the #Evolution_of_Morphogenesis (1/12)

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

How did life get multicellular? Five simple organisms could have the answer

Single-celled species that often stick together in colonies have researchers rethinking the origin of animals.

go.nature.com

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

Mechanochemical coupling of cell shape and organ function optimizes heart size and contractile efficiency in zebrafish

Andrews et al. demonstrate that multiscale feedback between mechanical and chemical cues builds a functional heart to support zebrafish embryonic life. Cell recruitment and organ-scale forces drive tr...

tinyurl.com