check out the fantastic list of speakers on the final program for the 2026 Santa Cruz Dev Biol meeting! Click below, then click the "Conference Program" Link! @lowelab.bsky.social @rashmi-priya.bsky.social @socdevbio.bsky.social scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu

✨ Meet our newest awardees, who are wading into the unknown to uncover new knowledge about the origin of complex life, antimicrobial peptides, social behavior, regeneration, and cell development. Learn about their projects: bit.ly/HFAwardees and hear from their #HFScouts in our 🧵 /1

Repost please !! We have extended the abstract deadline for the 2026 Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Conference to June 20. scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu. Get those abstract in !

Please repost !! SANTA CRUZ DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY CONFERENCE 2026. Deadline to register your abstracts for the meeting is Monday June 1. Please get those abstracts in ! scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu

Lab trip taking full advantage of CA spring weather and amazing parks near Monterey. Such a great place to be based.

Did you know that fully half of the talks at the Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting this year will be chosen from submitted abstracts? It's true! Great opportunities for trainees and PIs, too! @socdevbio.bsky.social @rashmi-priya.bsky.social @lowelab.bsky.social scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu

alleninstitute.org/events/lake-...

2026 Lake Conference - Comparative and Evolutionary Neurobiology

Join the Allen Institute and Circuit Neuroscience Basel for the Lake Conference in Seattle, Washington this October. Comparative and Evolutionary...

alleninstitute.org

I'm hiring! I have 2 open positions: 🔬 Postdoc 🧪 Research associate We study how animal multicellularity evolved by exploring the molecular logic of cell adhesion using cell biology, 'omics, and tool-building in non-model organisms. Come join us! Details and application links 👇 Please repost

Abrupt Dismissal of NIH and NSF Staff Undermines Government Efficiency

scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu. Registration is open for the Santa Cruz Developmental Biology meeting AUGUST 2026. PLEASE SHARE.

Do you love quantifying animal behavior as much as we do? We have just the tool for you! Presenting #OCTRON - a pipeline that helps you create rich annotation data and enables training of custom segmentation models. Have a look, particularly if you work with non-model / invertebrate organisms!

Bittersweet Tahoe retreat with the lab - we said goodbye to Laurent @laurentformery.bsky.social as he starts his new lab www.echinox.org @biom-banyuls.bsky.social. He made his indelible mark in our lab. Very excited to watch new discoveries from his own lab. He will always be LoweLab for us.

Echinox Laboratory

The Echinox Laboratory uses several echinoderm species as natural experiments on body plans to investigate the developmental mechanisms of animal evolution

echinox.org

Laurent Formery@laurentformery.bsky.social · 8mo ago

@lowelab.bsky.social lab retreat in #Tahoe for my last week in the US. It's very sad to say goodbye to such a great group of people, and to an amazing mentor 🥹🥹 But there are new exciting adventures ahead!!

Check out the invited speakers for the Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meetings next summer. It is going to be a great meeting. Registration and Abstract submission will be live early 2026.

John Wallingford@jbwallingford.bsky.social · 8mo ago

The 2026 Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting website is LIVE!!! Go see the incredible list of scientists who will be speaking at the meeting next summer! (...and check the site early next year for info on registration and abstract submission.) scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu

Save the date for the next Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting next summer.

John Wallingford@jbwallingford.bsky.social · 9mo ago

SAVE THE DATE! Stoked to organize the 2026 Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting with @rashmi-priya.bsky.social, @lowelab.bsky.social, and Shelbi Russell. Come learn about Biomedicine, Biomechanics, and the Biosphere, August 24-28, 2026. Registration dates, etc., coming soon! Please RT

Our paper on the role of neurons in Nematostella head regeneration is now out at @currentbiology.bsky.social Big thank you to all collaborators, it was a pleasure! Ectopic head regeneration after nervous system ablation in a sea anemone: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...

Ectopic head regeneration after nervous system ablation in a sea anemone

Via genetic ablation of neurons, Mazloumi Gavgani et al. show that the nervous system is essential for defining axial polarity during whole-body regeneration in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis.

cell.com

My book 'The Tree of Life' is published in the USA and Canada today. Available as book, on kindle and as audio. I would be really grateful for reposts. www.amazon.com/Tree-Life-So... www.amazon.ca/Tree-Life-So...

Great collaboration between @paulbump.bsky.social and @planaria1.bsky.social lab. Some really surprising findings for cell type turnover during hemichordate metamorphosis.

Paul Bump@paulbump.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Excited to share our recent work from @lowelab.bsky.social on the intersection of life history and cell type evolution: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Want to be on the ground floor for exciting new insights into echinoderm body plan and life history evolution? Apply to this lab!!! Laurent Formery is just getting going and will be making key insights in this space. Banyuls is beautiful and has a great team working in deuterostome development.

Laurent Formery@laurentformery.bsky.social · 11mo ago

I am very happy to announce that the Echinox Lab will open in the BIOM unit at @obs-banyuls.fr in January 2026!! 🥳 We will use several echinoderm species to study animal body plan evolution. 🔽 Check our brand new lab website if you want to learn more about our future research www.echinox.org

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1.... Check out this new manuscript from Loh Lab at Stanford on the developmental origins of the vertebrate CNS.

Two parallel lineage-committed progenitors contribute to the developing brain

The hindbrain is a life-sustaining brain region. In one model, a common neural progenitor generates all brain regions. Here our studies of mouse embryos and human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) suppor...

biorxiv.org

Inspired by visits to Woods Hole @mblscience.bsky.social and Roscoff, we hope to welcome folks in #SunnyBergen to foster exchange and spark discoveries in Marine Life Sciences.

Michael Sars Centre@msarscentre.bsky.social · last yr.

We are thrilled to announce the launch of the Michael Sars Visitors Program! ✨🧪 To spark new connections, we are opening our doors to visiting researchers who wish to conduct a project in #SunnyBergen. Applications are open, help us spread the word!

This is one of the best parts of the job - seeing talented, hard-working people being recognized and given the opportunity to start their own groups. Laurent is just getting started on echinoderms.... talented ambitious people on the lookout for a position in a great new lab.... stay tuned.

Laurent Formery@laurentformery.bsky.social · last yr.

I am honored and beyond happy to share that I have been awarded an @inserm.fr #ATIP-Avenir fellowship to start my own lab to study body plan evolution in #echinoderms 🤩 Stay tuned for more exciting updates coming soon!!

I really love my new colleague at Hopkins, here shown in her element on the last day of her new imaging mini course at Hopkins. Vanessa Barone is such an amazing addition to the faculty in Biology and Hopkins

Check out our latest work‼️Fantastic study with really cool data and findings led by @allancarbal.bsky.social in collaborarion with Stephan’s lab. The one and many ways of getting a belly…

Allan Carrillo-Baltodano@allancarbal.bsky.social · last yr.

It's finally here! Great start of the summer. We got our latest preprint from @chemamd.bsky.social in @qmulsbbs.bsky.social @qmulse.bsky.social, showing evidence of developmental system drift in the specification of dorsoventral (belly vs back) axis in annelids 🪱🪱🪱 #DevBio #EvoDevo

Want a growing and awesome community studying fundamentals in developmental and cell biology using emerging marine models. Apply for this postdoc.

Barone Lab@baronelab.bsky.social · last yr.

Job Alert! We are recruiting one postdoc to work on spiralian embryos and their crazy polar lobes. More info about this HFSP-funded position on our website baronelab.org: scroll to the end, click on "this could be you"...start your adventure!

evodevojournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

Antero-posterior patterning in the brittle star Amphipholis squamata and the evolution of echinoderm body plans - EvoDevo

Although the adult pentaradial body plan of echinoderms evolved from a bilateral ancestor, identifying axial homologies between the morphologically divergent echinoderms and their bilaterian relatives...

evodevojournal.biomedcentral.com

Excellent developmental biology symposium at Hopkins today organized by Vanessa Barone. Guest speaker Jake Warner with Stanford and Biohub faculty. Really great talks and discussion.

@endofthepier.bsky.social I just saw this review of your new book from Eric Idle. I would retire - doesn't get better than that.

My first view of the finished book. The Tree of Life. #treeoflife @johnmurrays.bsky.social. Out 24th April. Can preorder now from all good bookshops. And please feel free to Repost!! (Sound up to hear me make a weird high pitched wookie growl.)

Another beautiful paper from @laurentformery.bsky.social . This species, A.squamata, is a viviparous brooder - juveniles year round. Near and dear to my heart as I worked on it for my thesis. Laurent took it to another level. First installment of a new series of papers he is working on.

Laurent Formery@laurentformery.bsky.social · last yr.

If you like snowflakes, check our new preprint about axial patterning in brittle stars ⭐ We looked at the expression of anteroposterior patterning genes in Amphipholis squamata juveniles, and compared it with existing data from other classes www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @lowelab.bsky.social

How did vision evolve? In our latest study, we show that: Key phototransduction genes originated in the metazoan stem group A conserved transcriptional program in putative PRCs from ctenophores to mammals www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A Pre-Bilaterian Origin of Phototransduction Genes and Photoreceptor Cells

The evolution of vision is a major novelty in animals, playing a fundamental role in developing complex behaviours. Vision initiates with a light-triggered phototransduction cascade occurring in photo...

biorxiv.org