New Toettchlab paper alert! Harrison Oatman just published his beautiful work combining software design for "smart" microscopy+optogenetics and some really beautiful work understanding EGFR-driven collective cell migration. www.cell.com/cell-systems...
Marco Grillo
@mgrillo.bsky.social
Developmental biologist. Spatial omics inventor. Co-founder of spatial.ist and haga.bio Researcher at nilssonlab.org
I currently live a “double life”: I am both a Staff Scientist in an academic lab and Founder/CSO of a small biotech startup @hagabio.bsky.social . This is not super common, so I thought I’d put together a thread clarifying how this works, at least for me.
#sthlmtech spatial biology startup Haga Bioscience has secured a $2.3M seed funding round from investors including @Almiinvest, Life Science Invest, SU Ventures, and a group of angel investors. By @arcticstartup https://arcticstartup.com/haga-bioscience-raises-2-3m-seed/ #NordicMade #biotech
Sweden's Haga Bioscience attracts oversubscribed seed round for spatial RNA technology development - ArcticStartup
Haga Bioscience, a Stockholm-based spatial biology startup, has secured $2.3 million (SEK 20.9 million) in an oversubscribed seed funding round from investors
arcticstartup.com
🎙️ Yesterday, Hower was invited to present our in situ technology at the VIB Spatial Omics 26 conference. It was a great opportunity to show the spatial omics field what we have been brewing!🔬 Thank you to the organizers and everyone who joined the session!✨ Catch Hower at poster #63 today💬
Journal impact factors were released yesterday. In our latest @dev-journal.bsky.social Editorial, @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social and I discuss how we are all architects of impact, highlighting that measuring the influence and support journals provide goes beyond a single number. doi.org/10.1242/dev....
The elephant in the room: impact factor
Summary: This Editorial offers an honest look at impact factor trends in developmental biology, explains how Development serves its community, and makes the case that sustaining developmental biology ...
doi.org
What is the evolutionary origin of the organizer? New work from @kremnyovs.bsky.social, @tclebedeva.bsky.social & Hejnol Lab @uni-jena.de reports the blastopore lip of the #ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi, a member of the evolutionary sister group to all other metazoans, exhibits organizer activity.
A blastoporal organizer in a ctenophore - Nature
Experiments using the comb jelly Mnemiopsis leidyi and the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis reveal that the emergence of a core signalling pathway may have been a key innovation enabling the transit...
nature.com
Janelia is built for this moment. Starting today, we're taking on 2 big bets: cracking how a vertebrate brain generates behavior, & building AI-in-the-Loop Discovery — a new way of doing biology. Tiny transparent fish + one of neuroscience’s biggest questions? Let's go: hhmi.news/2BigBets
Our latest: Minimal essential requirements for neural tube self-organisation How does a single cell give rise to a tissue with the right cell types in the right proportions? We deconstruct and rebuild a self-organising tissue from first principles A thread🧵 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Minimal essential requirements for neural tube self-organisation
The reliable generation of diverse cell types in precise proportions is essential for the formation of functional tissues during embryonic development. Three-dimensional organoid models derived from p...
biorxiv.org
Mechanisms of magnetosensing in pigeons - a surprise appearance of macrophages! Getting home in the dark | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Getting home in the dark
Two mechanisms, independent of daylight, may enable pigeons to navigate using Earth’s magnetic field
science.org
TL;DR: We've identified more than 100 cases of apparent manipulation in Thermo Fisher Scientific's antibody verification data. @sholtodavid.bsky.social @johanduchene.bsky.social reeserichardson.blog/2026/05/28/h...
How much of Thermo Fisher’s antibody data has been manipulated?
We’ve documented more than 100 instances of apparent data manipulation in Thermo’s catalog
reeserichardson.blog
Is the purpose of science and 🧪 training to churn out papers or to create a healthy knowledge community? In a @nature.com comment, @mjcrockett.bsky.social and I check in on how AI helps with the former while jeopardizing the latter 1/
The uncritical adoption of AI in science is alarming — we urgently need guard rails | Nature
Artificial intelligence is rapidly accelerating scientific output, but risks narrowing inquiry, weakening judgement and undermining how scientists are trained. Artificial intelligence is rapidly accelerating scientific output, but risks narrowing inquiry, weakening judgement and undermining how scientists are trained.
nature.com
A gentle reminder that if your customers are scientists, your products and claims will be extensively (and rightfully) scrutinized.
Surprised to discover that Thermo Fisher appears to show a fake western blot for the validation of one of their p53 antibodies. I've added a diagram to show the very similar bands. This does not appear to be one of the "published figures" but their own internal data.
of many projects Craig Venter led, of personal significance was the fly genome, a unique and i think unexpected collaboration of his company Celera Genomics and the BDGP, led by my pd advisor Gerry Rubin. the power of a shotgun sequenced metazoan, benchmarked to a physical map, transformed genomics.
It is with great sadness that we announce J. Craig Venter has died. 🧪🧬 www.jcvi.org/media-center...
Using light-activated CRISPR in zebrafish, we triggered synchronized DNA breaks and track the repair process. ⚡🐟⚡ Well ... DNA repair is very different in embryos compared to tissue culture cells. Embryos repair DNA breaks incredibly fast - within minutes! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
At @szndohrn.bsky.social, the floor tiles have stitching and segmentation artifacts :) Just finished teaching the marvels of spatial omics to the great group of PhD students of @zoocell.biologists.social.ap.brid.gy, together with @alvarocrevenna.bsky.social. What a week! 🔬🍕🍝🍷🧪
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...
As mentioned elsewhere, I've been dreaming of solving this problem for a looooooooong time. Nice to see that my dreams were also the dreams of a very talented team! Slightly different approach, same problem, similar logic. Loving this!
We’re unwrapping a new method today at @mskcancercenter.bsky.social. Led by Sydney Blattman, Nabih Maslah, and @austinv11.com with @danapeer.bsky.social, @ronanchaligne.bsky.social and @10xgenomics.bsky.social, we present GIFT: Genotyping In Fixed Transcriptomes www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 1/n
Capturing somatic mutations in single-cell probe-based assays (ie. 10X Flex) is a hard task, especially if you don't know *exactly* the mutations you want to capture, or if your target sequence is a mutational hotspot with many possible alternative alleles. Here's the way we pulled this off. Enjoy!
We GoT a Filling…uuuuhoooo 𝗧𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗳 𝗺𝘂𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝘃𝗶𝗮 𝗥𝗡𝗔-𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗴𝗮𝗽 𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗳 𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗼𝗻𝘂𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗱𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗲-𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝗥𝗡𝗔-𝘀𝗲𝗾 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Why so serious? 🃏 Marco Grillo, Anna Nam and yours truly 𝗚𝗼𝗧 𝗮 𝗙𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 that will make you happy 😃 No more limitations. Maximum flexibility. Something is coming. Stay tuned. #singlecellwithaplus
Let me introduce you to KaroSpace, which is a rapid-access framework for interactive exploration of multi-sample spatial omics data. The preprint can be accessed here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Do you work with a strange model species and are frustrated by the lack of antibodies for immunos? Here's a web app that does some computational pre-screening for you. sixpack-abscan.serve.scilifelab.se
In animals with large genomes, finding cis-regulatory elements can be very challenging. Enhancers can be located tens/hundreds of kb away from their target promoters. We face this challenge in Parhyale, with >3 Gbp genome. We just published a preprint describing how we are tackling this problem. /1
biorxiv.org
I am very happy (and a bit scared) to present to you what we have been working on over the last 4 years. This manuscript is exactly what I dreamt of when I started the lab and I could not be happier and prouder of the outcome!
Evolutionary dynamics of temporal transcription factor series in the insect optic lobe https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.08.698497v1
Mastodon: the Command Center for Large-Scale Lineage-Tracing Microscopy Datasets https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.10.693416v1
#OpenCloning is a an Open Source alternative to SnapGene/Benchling that supports automation and integration with other software ✅ Free 🔓 Open Source 🧬 More cloning methods than SnapGene 🤖 Can be automated with python 👨🔬 Built by a researcher — for researchers! 👉 Check it out at opencloning.org
Thrilled to share my main postdoc work with @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social We used genomic barcoding + scRNAseq in chick & human embryos to reveal a lineage architecture that reshapes how we understand neural tube development & cell fate decisions 🧵👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Hierarchical lineage architecture of human and avian spinal cord revealed by single-cell genomic barcoding
The formation of neural circuits depends on the precise spatial and temporal organisation of neuronal populations during development. In the vertebrate spinal cord, progenitors are patterned into mole...
biorxiv.org
There is still “an urgent need for donations from the community,” says Eric Lai, president of the Fly Board. By @callimcflurry.bsky.social #neuroskyence www.thetransmitter.org/community/fl...
FlyBase secures funding for year, but future still uncertain
The FlyBase team’s fundraising efforts have proven successful in the short term, but restoration of its federal grant remains uncertain.
thetransmitter.org
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reaffirming the value of model organisms in training scientific minds - Nature Cell Biology
As biomedical research prioritizes human models and translational promise, classic model organisms are increasingly dismissed. Here we argue that they have a lasting value, both in enabling discovery and in cultivating scientific thinking, by training researchers in systems reasoning, integrative thinking and independent inquiry.
nature.com
Here it is! Postdoctoral position to identify the progenitors sensory organs in the regenerating legs of Parhyale apply here: www.averof-lab.org/pages/tracman 1/3
We've just been awarded a grant to study the cellular basis of regeneration – to track the progenitors of sensory organs in the context of leg regeneration, in our favourite crustacean tinyurl.com/parhyale, based on live imaging and cell tracking. The project involves some cool collaborations... 1/3
🔬🧬🔍 If you're interested in spatial omics and miRNAs, don’t miss our latest review! We explore where the early field of spatial miRNomics stands, what’s missing, and why incorporating miRNAs matters for building richer spatial transcriptomic maps. #SpatialOmics #miRNA #GeneRegulation
"Spatially resolved microRNA expression in tissues: technologies, challenges, and opportunities" by Agustín Robles-Remacho et al "Recent pioneering studies demonstrate the potential of spatial miRNA profiling for translational and clinical research." Read here: authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...