Very pleased to finally share the main story from my PhD, now published in @natcomms.nature.com ! 🎉 Using a sea anemone we discovered and characterised epithelial cell extrusion as the mechanism underlying starvation-induced cell loss. 🔗 Open-access article: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Epithelial cell extrusion underlies starvation-induced cell loss in a sea anemone - Nature Communications

Epithelial cell extrusion in a sea anemone shares key hallmarks with bilaterians and is dynamically regulated by nutritional status. During starvation-induced body shrinkage, extrusion likely contribu...

nature.com

Intestinal stem cells count self-renewal divisions to switch multipotency @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Happy to share that my PhD work from the @ulrichtechnau.bsky.social lab is finally out! ^^

@ulrichtechnau.bsky.social · 2w ago

Check the brilliant work by Sanjay Narayanaswamy in Nature Comm. www.nature.com/articles/s41.... He established a scalable Gastruloid protocol and showed that in gastruloids of Nematostella axial polarity and germ layer restoration and sorting depends on a Notch-Wnt signaling feedback loop.

Great work by PhD student Patricio Ferrer Murguia. His paper reporting the twist mutant in Nematostella is out: doi.org/10.1242/dev.... twist is required to form secondary tentacles, via localized FGFR and mTOR signaling. Later, mutants form stunning epithelial neoplasia with tentacle identity.

So happy to share our new paper out now in @natmicrobiol.nature.com! We establish Pirsonia-Coscinodiscus as a model pathosystem and uncover how this tiny parasite infects and kills bloom-forming marine diatoms 🌊🦠 rdcu.be/fuQyF

Paying peer reviewers Interview with @danielgorelick.bsky.social about @biologyopen.bsky.social Fast & Fair trial in which peer reviewers were paid £220/review Spoiler: it works - fast, high quality reviews www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Why paying peer reviewers works, according to a journal’s editor-in-chief

A biology journal that paid peer reviewers found that the approach cut the time to a first editorial decision by 85% and maintained high-quality reviews.

nature.com

First postdoc paper and first Nematostella project! By using the dynamic expression pattern of minicollagens, we describe the transcriptional profile during biogenesis for two major stinging cell types: nematocytes and spirocytes www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #StunningStella

Minicollagen expression dynamics reveal a transcriptional program for cnidogenesis in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis

Cnidae are explosive harpoon-like organelles localized within stinging cells, or cnidocytes, of the phylum Cnidaria (jellyfish, hydroids, sea anemones, and corals). These unique Golgi-derived vesicula...

biorxiv.org

🌟📣 Check out the new publication of KLI fellow Sanjay Narayanaswamy (@sanjay-n.bsky.social) and colleagues: "Notch coordinates self-organization of germ layers and axial polarity in sea anemone gastruloids". www.nature.com/articles/s41... Congratulations to the authors! 💐

Spectacular preprint led by @sydsat.bsky.social in @ohnolog.bsky.social lab, @uwgenome.bsky.social. Neutrophils precede gastrulation in killifish and rapidly patrol the yolk. (1/2)

Early immune cell development precedes gastrulation in annual killifish

During embryogenesis, cell types arise in a predictable order because developmental regulators act sequentially. But how evolutionary changes in morphogenesis reshape the signaling environments that a...

doi.org

Congratulations to @kremnyovs.bsky.social, @tclebedeva.bsky.social and @hejnol.bsky.social - this is a fantastic paper. www.nature.com/articles/s41... Very happy to have been part of this collaboration.

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

Here’s the last major paper from the PhD of @paulknabl.bsky.social. We were trying to understand what BMP signaling does in the sea anemone Nematostella when it is not patterning its second body axis. Check out Part 1 in BMC Biol. 2025; and here's is our Part 2 journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

The anti-neural role of BMP signaling is a consequence of its ancestral function in dorsoventral patterning

Bilaterian animals with centralized nervous systems have patterns of BMP signaling activity gradient that suggest an “anti-neural” ancestral role, but the evidence for this remains unclear. This study...

journals.plos.org

Is this the future of peer review? New from @biologyopen.bsky.social: expanded Fast & Fair trial paying reviewers £220 per paper The result: rapid peer review with no drop in quality or change in acceptance rate Paying referees makes peer review faster & fairer www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🚨 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

The Frenster Lab is here! 🍾 I am so excited to start my #EmmyNoether funded group at @uni-freiburg.de this summer. Our group studies #CellCompetition dynamics during embryonic development using #gastruloids from multiple species. Thanks to the @dfg.de for creating this opportunity! FrensterLab.com

Frenster Lab | Cell Competition Dynamics

We study Cell Competition during Embryonic Development using 3D Gastruloids at the University of Freiburg. We view cells as interactive societies in development and cancer. Research, stem cells, Gastr...

frensterlab.com

That's it: #GfE2026 #GfESEBDDSDB2026 is over. Thanks for the science, talks, posters, chairing, discussions, helpers in back & front. See you latest at #GfE2028 for more #DevBio & oidsks for all the fish, plants, mice, worm, flies, frogs, squids, brown algae, human, -oids, whatnots and you.

Honored and very grateful to receive the GfE PhD Award 2026! Many thanks to GfE for the recognition of our work! This would not have been possible without the guidance of my supervisor @genikhovich.bsky.social and the many amazing collaborators and colleagues who contributed along the way ❤️.#GfE2026

Gesellschaft für Entwicklungsbiologie e.V.@gfeev.bsky.social · 5mo ago

The GfE PhD Award 2026 goes to Tatiana Lebedeva (@tclebedeva.bsky.social) for her outstanding contribution to developmental biology. She presents the topic of her thesis on the "Role of β-Catenin signaling in germ layer specification in Cnidaria". #GfE2026

The GfE PhD Award 2026 goes to Tatiana Lebedeva (@tclebedeva.bsky.social) for her outstanding contribution to developmental biology. She presents the topic of her thesis on the "Role of β-Catenin signaling in germ layer specification in Cnidaria". #GfE2026

#gfe2026 @gfeev.bsky.social PhD Award goes to Tatiana Lebedeva 🎉 for Tatiana's thesis investigating the role of β-catenin in specifying germ layers in one of my favourite organisms, the starlet sea anemone, Nematostella.

Opinion piece: Can space be democratized? India’s frugal #space innovation offers key lessons for #EmergingNations. In PNAS Front Matter: https://ow.ly/QN1N50Yn1ps #ISRO #India #Chandrayaan3 #SpaceProgram #NASA #MAVENOrbiter

New preprint from Ruohan Zhong on the architecture of the Nematostella nervous system, check it out! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New paper out in @bmc.springernature.com 🤩👏 A routine 5-ethynyl uridine (EU) RNA labeling experiment in a sea anemone turned into detective work for @malinkjosavik.bsky.social, @ktgarschall.bsky.social & @prhsteinmetz.bsky.social 🕵️‍♀️

A widely used RNA assay labels the wrong molecules in several model organisms

After a routine experiment raised suspicions, Steinmetz group researchers joined forces with collaborators to highlight the limitations of a commonly used RNA labeling product.

uib.no

New Paper Alert! 1982: WNT discovered 1990s: NOTCH enters the stage 2000s: “Let’s study pathways separately.” 2025: “Actually, they talk to each other.” Welcome to the era of WNT-NOTCH crosstalk Great collaboration with Mašek lab (CZ) and G. Collu (US) royalsocietypublishing.org/rsob/article...

Decoding ‘Wntch’: the intertwined Wnt and Notch pathways in development and disease

Abstract. Multicellularity emerges from the ability of cells to undergo functional differentiation. One of the key mechanisms that enables this coordinatio

royalsocietypublishing.org

Thrilled to share the preprint from my PhD! 🥳 Where I characterised epithelial cell extrusion in a sea anemone 🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Big thanks to my supervisor @prhsteinmetz.bsky.social and coauthors @noahbruderer.bsky.social @lionlchristiaen.bsky.social at🇳🇴 @msarscentre.bsky.social ⬇️🧵

A new Hydractinia single-cell atlas from the Schnitzler lab: >47K cells from feeding polyps and stolon tissue that refines major somatic cell lineages and recovers a novel population of putative immune cells – a valuable resource for the cnidarian research community and beyond! tinyurl.com/hsymSC

An updated and spatially validated somatic single-cell atlas of Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus - BMC Genomics

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) has revolutionized transcriptomic research, enabling the creation of detailed tissue, organ, and species-level atlases for model organisms. In Hydractinia, a cni...

tinyurl.com

Congrats to Nadja and the @tessmarraiblelabs.bsky.social. Check out their cool new work (featuring a small sketch I made)!

Tessmar-Raible Labs@tessmarraiblelabs.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Freshly out at @natcomms.nature.com ! Our @univie.ac.at @awi.de @viennabiocenter.bsky.social @ercgrantees.bsky.social research into neurogenic plasticity of adult worm brains, and similarities in stem cells supporting growth of camera-type eyes. www.nature.com/articles/s41... [1/7]

Freshly out at @natcomms.nature.com ! Our @univie.ac.at @awi.de @viennabiocenter.bsky.social @ercgrantees.bsky.social research into neurogenic plasticity of adult worm brains, and similarities in stem cells supporting growth of camera-type eyes. www.nature.com/articles/s41... [1/7]

This is so cool :)

Wallace Marshall@wallaceucsf.bsky.social · 12mo ago

Cells can form patterns within themselves just like embryos do. How? Connie Yan's new preprint shows how the anterior-posterior cytoskeleton pattern in Stentor is dictated by regionalized scaffolding proteins www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT📣: I haven’t been this excited to be part of something new in 15 years… Thrilled to reveal the passion project I’ve been working on for the past year and a half!🙀🥳 (thread 👇)

🚨 My lab is hiring at all levels! Interested in animal origins & evolutionary cell biology? I'm recruiting a postdoc, PhD students & a research assistant to study the molecular evolution of cell adhesion using marine invertebrates + comparative genomics. 🔗: clarkelab.com/join/ Please repost!

See this? This = implanting mouse embryo. Usually this happens inside its mother and is invisible to us, but we can actually watch implantation ex vivo with the hope of understanding why implantation goes awry in embryos of older women. A 🧵...