Happy to share the final version of our study on the evolution of chromatin states across eukaryotes, out today in @natgenet.nature.com Led by @crisnava.bsky.social and @seanamontgomery.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... Some highlights below

Diversity and evolution of chromatin regulatory states across eukaryotes - Nature Genetics

This study introduces iChIP2, a low-input chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing method that profiles histone post-translational modifications (hPTMs) simultaneously across diverse eukar...

nature.com

C.H. Waddington's lasting achievements in development and evolution Jonathan B. L. Bard examines some of Waddington's research papers that show why he is one of the few pre-molecular-age developmental biologists still widely remembered and how they remain significant. doi.org/10.1242/dev....

C.H. Waddington's lasting achievements in development and evolution

ABSTRACT. C.H. Waddington (1905-1975) was a British biologist and perhaps the major figure in developmental biology between the 1940s and 1960s. He is one of the few pre-molecular-age developmental bi...

doi.org

Wonderful news. TE annotations will now considerably improve 🎉

Clément Goubert@clementgoubert.bsky.social · last mo.

Major development in the #Transposon world! Repbase is joining the Dfam project and becomes open-access! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Transposable elements underlie chromosomal fusions and fissions in a highly species-rich group of butterflies https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.15.732387v1

New paper! How do RNAs "know" where to go inside a cell? We dug into the sequence elements that route RNAs to the right place. It turns out that, in mammals, they're surprisingly massive (>200 nt), multipartite, and wonderfully complicated. 🧵

61 species, 13 phyla, one simple geometric rule that appears to set when every embryo starts speaking through its own genome. 🧬 Panagiotis Giannios highlights a recent #preprint from @mirimiam.bsky.social & collaborators. #EvolutionaryBiology #preLight: prelights.biologists.com/highlights/e...

Evolutionary landscapes of zygotic genome activation across animals - preLights

61 species, 13 phyla, one simple geometric rule that appears to set when every embryo starts speaking through its own genome.

prelights.biologists.com

What can we learn from butterflies? 🦋 Butterfly models help us uncover how genes shape form, revealing the mechanisms behind pattern formation, cell fate decisions, and morphogenesis. #ModelMonday #DevBio #EvoDevo 🧬 📸 Photo by Ignacio Vazquez on Pexels

Come hear my talk ☺️

QMUL Centre for Epigenetics @qmulepigenetics.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Here is the official programme for our Annual Centre for Epigenetics Conference 2026! Don't miss the opportunity to hear great talks and connect with fellow professionals in the field of epigenetics. Book your place here: www.qmul.ac.uk/epigenetics/... #epigenetics #epihub #qmul #conference

ICYMI: New online! The long reach of the Red Queen

Super cool story. Glad to be a part of it ☺️

Chema Martin@chemamd.bsky.social · 3mo ago

🚨 We discovered a new mode of Hox gene regulation in annelids! 🪱 A distal enhancer acts as a "global control region", lifting Hox genes from Polycomb repression. This is reminiscent of Hox gene control in vertebrates, but the two modes likely evolved convergently. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Excited to share our latest paper! We found that large pieces of the human genome can transfer between cells upon direct contact, endowing recipient cells with heritable phenotypic changes. @cp-cell.bsky.social (1/7) www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Convergent evolution of cluster-wide Hox gene regulation in Bilateria https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.05.18.725834v1

It was a pleasure reading this @mdonertas.bsky.social We’d briefly crossed paths in the Partridge Lab when I was just a measly masters student 😅 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Evolutionary genetics of ageing - Nature Reviews Genetics

Modern humans increasingly live long enough to experience late-life consequences of genetic and molecular systems shaped by natural selection. In this Review, the authors integrate evolutionary geneti...

nature.com

🚨 Still one week left to apply - deadline May 20th. Come join the @mpi-cbg.de or @biohub.org. Happy to host projects that align with my lab's overarching question how embryos leverage their (micro-)environment to build themselves robustly. Embryo models, morphospaces, mechanics, metabolism & more!

Although cohesin-sensitive, long-range enhancer activation is equivalent in nature to proximal activation. Cooperativity can arise from different levels of activation inputs operating on a non-linear response function. @eliasfriman.bsky.social @uoe-igc.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

👋 Transposon lovers: registration is now open for the CSHL TE meeting! We have a 🔥 lineup of invited speakers and many slots for short talks selected upon abstract across all areas of TE biology. 🧬➰🧬 #TEsky Abstract deadline: July 10 meetings.cshl.edu/meetings.asp...

It was a pleasure to collaborate on this project. Special thanks to @campobes.bsky.social @arburga.bsky.social for the opportunity ☺️

Manuel Irimia@mirimiam.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Thrilled to present our comparative study on the evolution of zygotic genome activation (ZGA)!! 🥚🧬 Amazing PhD work of @campobes.bsky.social together with @fedemantica.bsky.social and many collaborators! @melisupf.bsky.social @crg.eu. Thread below 1/15 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New online! Tools and tactics for studying alternative splicing

Tools and tactics for studying alternative splicing

Nature Reviews Genetics, Published online: 17 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41576-026-00952-4In this Review, Sousa-Luís and Carmo-Fonseca discuss the various tools available to detect and quantify alternative splicing, functionally test splice isoforms and investigate the link between genetic variation, splicing and disease.

dlvr.it

This is pretty cool

Hao Yin@haoyin.bsky.social · 4mo ago

orthogene bioconductor.org/packages/rel... Map your genes of interest across >700 species Can do many:many bioRxiv 2026 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Our last manuscript is out! 🚨 We identify double stranded RNAs in embryonic stem cells - full of transposons, especially young LINEs and LTRs 🧐 🧬Happy Friday Reading🧬

FYI: New online! How classical genetics uncovered key determinants of TE silencing

In this interview, @juliabatki.bsky.social, FMI’s newest group leader, reflects on the early curiosity that drew her to science, why FMI is the right home for her lab, how studying cell clearance could help us understand disease, and her love of improv. www.fmi.ch/news-events/...

Curiosity, cell clearance, and improv: A chat with Julia Batki

In this interview, Julia Batki, FMI’s newest group leader, reflects on the early curiosity that drew her to science, why FMI is the right home for her lab, how studying cell clearance could help us un...

fmi.ch

Interesting study suggesting a sequence signature reflecting DNMT1 activity explain losses of DNA methylation with cell division, aging and cancer: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #epigenetics

academic.oup.com/genetics/adv... Also thanks to Lyndall & @psarkies.bsky.social, @ahocher.bsky.social, and members of the lab for their comments and Francis Barr @oxfordbiochemistry.bsky.social for encouraging me to write down my thoughts.

Actually, what is a gain-of-function mutation?

Abstract. For more than a century, scientists have worked to characterize, understand, and predict the consequences of mutations. For almost as long, scien

academic.oup.com

ICYMI: New online! How classical genetics uncovered key determinants of TE silencing

Happy pi (RNA) day everyone! And what better way to enjoy than to revisit the unusual features of nematode piRNAs: www.cell.com/developmenta...

Comparative Epigenomics Reveals that RNA Polymerase II Pausing and Chromatin Domain Organization Control Nematode piRNA Biogenesis

piRNAs are an important genome regulatory mechanism conserved across metazoans. In the nematode C. elegans, piRNA biogenesis evolved several differences from other metazoans. Beltran et al. study the ...

cell.com

Ever wondered how a eukaryotic transcription factor finds its specific DNA motif in the vast genome? In this preprint, we directly measured the dynamics of this search process in living cells, revealing a cooperative mechanism mediated by disordered regions. 1/10 doi.org/10.64898/202...

Fun project to have worked on with very talented colleagues. Thanks for the shoutout @genomebiolevol.bsky.social ☺️

Genome Biology and Evolution@genomebiolevol.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Davies et al. assemble the genome of polychaete Capitella teleta, a model for evolutionary developmental biology, comparative genomics, conservation, and ecotoxicology, generating a 243 Mb chromosome-level genome, and publish a genome browser. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evag041 #genome #evolution

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

Gene regulatory networks: from correlative models to causal explanations

Nature Reviews Genetics - In this Perspective, Maizels and Briscoe discuss the limitations of current models of gene regulatory networks and outline solutions to harness data abundance without...

rdcu.be

Very excited to announce the FIRST symposium on epigenome editing! These tools are becoming widely used in mol bio, ag & therapy. It's time to bring leaders together to discuss this rapidly growing and exciting field. And why not in Paris! Please register & share! (1/2) ctrlepiedit.sciencesconf.org