I know I am shouting into a void here as the people doing it are not on this platform...Dear applicants, I know what my homepage says, I wrote it. If you want to apply to my lab, please tell me in your own words WHAT you are excited about and why. I will be excited with you and we can discuss...!

And yes, despite the heated debate last week, I came to the conclusion that pre-prints are still the best way to distribute your work early and wide. Score me don't score me, time will show relevance after all.

#2 Close collaboration with @rocha-lab.bsky.social across institutes. @catfigueiredo.bsky.social shows that neurogenic progenitors in the developing retina can respond to cell death with an unexpected self-renewing division. I am sure Mauricio has more to say :-). www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Apoptosis-induced self-renewal of neurogenic progenitors safeguards retinal development against extensive cell loss

Developing embryos have a striking ability to buffer external and internal perturbations. A key example of this phenomenon across developing systems is successful organ formation even after substantia...

biorxiv.org

We are trying for a hattrick this month and two out of three are out: #1 Great work by Margarida Cruz et al. showing that tissue context in addition to cell intrinsic programs can determine migration mode of neurons. Retinal Bipolar Cells as an example. Check it out! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Tissue lamination state switches neuronal translocation from active to passive in the vertebrate retina

Neuronal migration is essential for establishing functional tissue architecture in the developing central nervous system. While cell-intrinsic mechanisms driving neuronal movement have been identified...

biorxiv.org

PL retweet. Developmental Biology Course (Quintay). More information: biodesarrollo.unab.cl

It also almost starts looking like a lab space 🙂

First lab outing Cambridge edition in the five minutes the sun was shining … decent coffee and to many more

My personal April’s fool I guess: when I was called over to HR in the ‘old school’ I was not aware that they will make me sign into this very important book that supposedly started in 13XX and THIS is what I was wearing… My mum will be so proud she said taking the picture 🤷‍♀️ #thingstolearnincambridge

And it’s a wrap… the end of an era and what an era it was at igc and @gimminstitute.bsky.social. @pdncambridge.bsky.social and @gurdoninstitute.bsky.social here I come. Brace yourselves 😉!

📢New behind the paper story Using the #zebrafish retina as a model, Jaakko Lehtimäki @jalehtimaki.bsky.social, Caren Norden @nordenlab.bsky.social & team dissect multipolar migration in the developing brain. In this post, Jaakko takes us through their research.

Spider-like neurons finding their way: signposts for multipolar migration in the developing brain - FocalPlane

Spider-like neurons finding their way: signposts for multipolar migration in the developing brain - News

focalplane.biologists.com

Check out the tour de force by @jalehtimaki.bsky.social in its final form: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... . An elegant combination of transcriptomics, F0 screens and high end imaging unravels the cues that guide cells (here retinal horizontal cells) in an increasingly crowded tissue. #proudPI

Spatiotemporal coordination of Slit-Robo repulsion and neurturin-Gfrα attraction guides multipolar migration during retinal lamination

Multipolar migration is a conserved neuronal migration mode in the developing brain, enabling emerging neurons to navigate in crowded environments and…

sciencedirect.com

We encounter some bureaucratic problems importing our fish...Does anybody have a transgenic zebrafish line that marks the basement membrane/ECM in the UK? Would need to mark optic cup and final eye for our purposes. And/or an ras-GFP/RFP line? Thanks for looking and reposting!

New year celebration of the @nordenlab.bsky.social to great adventures and new beginnings (and a bit the end of an era)

A very sweet gesture by the @gimmfoundation.bsky.social canteen team for the remaining researchers before Christmas. Sofia and her team are just wonderful. Happy holidays!

José João Freitas (not on Bluesky) conducted mysterious and important work during his masters and defended today with the rare grade of 20/20! Well deserved! #proudPI … great things to come from this young man!

Anthony A. Hyman will become EMBL’s next Director General. He joins EMBL from @mpi-cbg.de in Dresden. He is also Professor of Molecular Biology @tudresden.bsky.social, and was a group leader at EMBL Heidelberg from 1993 to 1999. www.embl.org/news/people-...

Thank you A. Perez-Ramos and P. Bovolenta for this great perspective on our article about Optic Cup morphogenesis @dev-journal.bsky.social !

Development@dev-journal.bsky.social · 9mo ago

In preprints: folding from the top – apical forces drive eye cup formation Adrian Perez-Ramos and Paola Bovolenta discuss the recent preprint by Ramos et al. (2025) “The Optic cup is actively shape programmed by independently patterned apical forces”: journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

In case it was unclear that I have the best lab ever…I do! Just a regular ‘girls night out’ and boy was there singing 😉

Last corrida do Tejo as a resident…for many reasons it did not go very well for me this year but @dianamorales defended the lab honor! It is all about finishing in the end…😉 And a good reason to be back in 2026 and do better!

The Friday second try: After intense work, especially in the last year, this work is finally ready to be seen by the public. Led by @apramos.bsky.social and great collaboration with @carldmodes.bsky.social group especially @liormoneta.bsky.social : www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The Optic cup is actively shape programmed by independently patterned apical forces

During morphogenesis, initially flat tissues often must transition into complex 3D shapes, reminiscent of shape-programmable systems in physics and engineering. One key question in developmental biolo...

biorxiv.org

The Company of Biologists Workshops 2027: Excited to share that our workshop concept, "Bridging Scales and Disciplines to Understand Robust Development”, has been selected! 🤩@giuliapaci.bsky.social and I are looking forward to organizing it. Stay tuned for details! @biologists.bsky.social

Look who is here: @carldmodes.bsky.social ! It took a while but I can be persistent....more this afternoon :-)

We had our traditional @nordenlab.bsky.social summer BBQ! This time without BBQ but with Indian food, Murder Mystery (it was Ze) and some real blood in the end (tall people should avoid my house). But overall lots of fun and games. Looking forward doing that in Cambridge in the rain ;-)...

New preprint from the lab showcasing work led by @jalehtimaki.bsky.social on retinal patterning by non-canonically migrating neurons that sense spatiotemporally diverse guidance cues. Full thread about the content done by Jaakko here on Bluesky, check it out! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Spatiotemporal Coordination of Guidance Cues Directs Multipolar Migration During Retinal Lamination

Multipolar migration is a conserved neuronal migration mode in the developing brain, enabling emerging neurons to navigate crowded environments and reach precise laminar positions. Yet how these cells...

biorxiv.org

Crowd Control: The position & shape of cell nuclei influence organ formation (organogenesis) 📹 ‪@lcferme.bsky.social et al @gimmfoundation.bsky.social in @science.org Advances ➡️ bpod.org.uk/archive/2025/7/7 with John Ankers

Congratulations to @marianagil (not on Bluesky) for successfully defending her thesis today. The end of an era of the first batch of people joining the lab in Portugal…thanks to all jury and lab member for making this a memorable day!!!

A long overdue get together to celebrate the arrival of summer. Great company fun conversations, we all learned a lot…😉. Take note that @catfigueiredo.bsky.social has her eyes (well at least one) open! This was the only one out of 12 pictures…her secret super power!

We are delighted to welcome Dr Caren Norden to PDN as the new Charles Darwin Professor of Animal Embryology. This position plays a vital role in sustaining our thriving community of developmental and reproductive biologists. Read the story in full at www.pdn.cam.ac.uk/news/dr-care... #WomenInSTEM 🧪

The amazing tour de force of the great @lcferme.bsky.social is now out in its final form in @ScienceAdvances (not on Bluesky???). It was hard work and all the conceptual advance was her doing. Check it out: www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....

Yes, that is me, for those who did not yet know. This was not planned but I am very happy to go 'home' even though I will miss a lot about Portugal. If you still want to visit, hurry, otherwise see you in Cambridge. If you want to know more contact me directly. www.pdn.cam.ac.uk/news/dr-care...