Noura Maziak
@nmaziak.bsky.social
Mostly interested in development, 3D chromatin, and candy… emphasis on the last one 🙂 PhD candidate in Vaquerizas lab at Imperial
🚨 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...
📊 Five #ggplot2 functions I wish I'd known about earlier 📊 I've written a short blog (with examples) of some of the lesser-known {ggplot2} functions and arguments that make it easier to create better charts! Link: nrennie.rbind.io/blog/five-gg... #RStats #DataViz
Five ggplot2 functions I wish I’d known about earlier – Nicola Rennie
There are a few small tweaks you can make to your ggplot2 code to improve your charts. However, they’re not often mentioned. So here’s a few functions and arguments I wish I’d known about earlier.
nrennie.rbind.io
🚨 Why can’t mammals regenerate limbs like frog tadpoles or salamanders? In our new paper in @science.org , we show that species-specific oxygen sensing acts as a gatekeeper for initiating limb regeneration 🐭🐸 🔗 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #EvoDevo
Species-specific oxygen sensing governs the initiation of vertebrate limb regeneration
Why mammals cannot regenerate limbs like amphibians do presents a long-standing puzzle in biology. To uncover the underlying differences, we compared amputation responses of embryonic mouse (Mus musculus) and Xenopus laevis tadpole limbs. Lowering ...
science.org
I wrote an essay. It’s about gain-of-function mutations. And penguins. Also ion channels, chihuahuas, the film Alien, recycled cardboard, and the Apollonian mind. Oh, and muffins. Thanks to the editors of #GENETICS @genetics-gsa.bsky.social for letting me take some stylistic liberties. 1/2
I defended my PhD 10 years ago today. That was the least remarkable thing that happened that day. Sharing something I wrote about it last year. Since then "the horrors persist but so do we." And with dignity.
A nice thing happened.. We got the cover of Nature Genetics! 😊🎉 The spheres trace nuclear stages through early embryogenesis, with color bursts capturing the diverse events that shape genome architecture. Art done by my friend and very talented artist @christophewirtz.bsky.social 🎨
MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences@mrc-lms.bsky.social · 5mo agoOur research has made the front cover of Nature Genetics 🌟 “The Genome Awakens,” artwork by Christophe Wirtz, depicts the maternal-to-zygotic transition – capturing the dynamic transformation of genome architecture during early embryogenesis 🧬
Excited to share my PhD work! The question: How is genome organization established? Here, we developed a low-input Micro-C method, Pico-C, and used it to map chromatin architecture across early stages of fly development. Here’s a quick Blue-torial 🙂 (1/n) www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Three-dimensional genome reorganization foreshadows zygotic genome activation in Drosophila - Nature Genetics
Pico-C, a low-input Micro-C approach, reveals that dynamic three-dimensional genome folding precedes zygotic genome activation in Drosophila.
nature.com
Congratulations to @nmaziak.bsky.social, @vaquerizasjm.bsky.social et al: Pico-C (low-input Micro-C) shows 3D genome architecture reorganises before major zygotic genome activation in Drosophila, with early loop formation and stronger insulation. @natgenet.nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Three-dimensional genome reorganization foreshadows zygotic genome activation in Drosophila - Nature Genetics
Pico-C, a low-input Micro-C approach, reveals that dynamic three-dimensional genome folding precedes zygotic genome activation in Drosophila.
nature.com
It’s finally out! 😊
MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences@mrc-lms.bsky.social · 5mo agoNew technology reveals hidden DNA scaffolding built before life ‘switches on.’ Understanding this 3D organisation is critical as its failure can lead to developmental disorders and diseases such as cancer. @vaquerizasjm.bsky.social @nmaziak.bsky.social @imperialmed.bsky.social @mrc-lms.bsky.social
How to find Evolutionary Conserved Enhancers in 2025? 🐣-🐭 Check out our paper - fresh off the press!!! We find widespread functional conservation of enhancers in absence of sequence homology Including: a bioinformatic tool to map sequence-diverged enhancers! rdcu.be/enVDN github.com/tobiaszehnde...
Conservation of regulatory elements with highly diverged sequences across large evolutionary distances
Nature Genetics - Combining functional genomic data from mouse and chicken with a synteny-based strategy identifies positionally conserved cis-regulatory elements in the absence of direct sequence...
rdcu.be
Do you want to explore the #chromatin of an organism? Join our expert instructors at #LowInput25, and learn how to use low input techniques to support your #epigenomics research at the gene & genome-wide level ⏰Application deadline: 11 February 📎bit.ly/40fdETV #ChromatinSky @nmaziak.bsky.social
I never expected my first post here to be anything but science, yet today we celebrate the fall of a regime that’s brought decades of pain. The joy of this moment is worth sharing a thousand times over.
