Enard/Hellmann Lab

Enard/Hellmann Lab

@enardhellmannwg.bsky.social

Enard/Hellmann Group at LMU Munich, interested in evolution 🦍🦧🐒, primate-derived iPSCs 🧫 , single-cell omics 🧬, and method development of genomic technologies ⚙️ ➡️ https://www.bio.lmu.de/en/research/research-fields/humanbiology/

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Enard/Hellmann Lab
@enardhellmannwg.bsky.social

🎉 Big congrats to Fiona Edenhofer for defending her PhD! 🎓 In her thesis on the evolution of GRNs, she performed cross-species CRISPRi screens and helped establish primate iPSC lines. Fiona was key for many social events and brought the Kölsch to Munich. We will miss you and wish you all the best!

Enard/Hellmann Lab
@enardhellmannwg.bsky.social

📢 Seminar Announcement We’re excited to welcome Jörg Beckmann (Nuremberg Zoo) for a talk on the new roles of modern zoos — from research to conservation and beyond. 🗓️ 12 Jan 2026, 4 PM 📍 LMU Biozentrum, Lecture Hall B01.019 See you there! 🦒🦍

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Enard/Hellmann Lab
@enardhellmannwg.bsky.social

We found that human- and great-ape-specific transposable elements from the LTR7 family are enriched near POU5F1 target genes, suggesting that these insertions may have contributed to the rewiring of the network. This example showcases that CroCoNet can successfully detect shifts in gene regulation.

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Enard/Hellmann Lab
@enardhellmannwg.bsky.social

To address this challenge, CroCoNet relies on network variability between replicates of the same species and compares cross-species variability to this baseline. This way it can detect meaningful changes, pointing us to the most conserved and diverged modules of the network.

Enard/Hellmann Lab
@enardhellmannwg.bsky.social

We applied CroCoNet to a scRNA-seq dataset of primate early neural differentiation. The module of the pluripotency factor POU5F1 (OCT4) turned out to be one of the most diverged among all network modules, even though POU5F1 itself has a conserved sequence and expression pattern.

Enard/Hellmann Lab
@enardhellmannwg.bsky.social

Studying how gene regulatory networks are rewired across species helps us understand phenotypic evolution. But networks inferred from transcriptomic data are notoriously noisy, and cross-species comparisons are particularly sensitive to this noise, as it can mask true evolutionary differences.

Enard/Hellmann Lab
@enardhellmannwg.bsky.social

🎉 Big congrats to Philipp Janssen for defending his PhD! 🎓 He’s been a key part of the lab, contributing to many projects, including scRNAseq background and cross-species cell type comparisons, and always ready with new ideas (& coffee). We’re sad to see him go but excited to see what comes next!

Enard/Hellmann Lab
@enardhellmannwg.bsky.social

🎉Excited to share our new preprint: “Improving RNA-seq protocols” We introduce a systematic approach to maximize usable reads in RNA-seq. With this, we created prime-seq2, improving one of the most cost-efficient bulk RNAseq protocols. 👉Check it out: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

doi.orgImproving RNA-seq protocolsBulk and single-cell RNA-seq are powerful tools for transcriptomic analysis, providing insights into many aspects of molecular and cellular phenotypes. Costs constrain the amount of biological insight...
Enard/Hellmann Lab
@enardhellmannwg.bsky.social

Meet the TAs’ offices (5/5) ✨ Ines takes care of all the details that keep things organized 📑 Mrs Zhao is running the secretary ⛰️ Karin is mostly retired, but still comes in to help out 🧫 Sara is our greatest help in cell culture & ordering Together, they make everything work smoothly 💙

Enard/Hellmann Lab
@enardhellmannwg.bsky.social

Office (4/5): Welcome to the PIs offices We are handling dogs, budgets, people, projects and databases. Ines with Elly is running the dry lab Wolfgang with Mo is running the wet lab It’s such a privilege to work with all these wonderful people ❤️ and we have the best jobs we can imagine.

Enard/Hellmann Lab
@enardhellmannwg.bsky.social

Office (2/5): Welcome to the Pee-to-Profile Office! 🧪 Johanna developed a protocol to reprogram iPSCs from primate urine cells, 🧠 Manqi uses them to make neurons to study FOXP2, 🧫 Eva differentiates them to macrophages for cross-species comparisons and 📈 Daniel extends prime-seq to profile them all!

Enard/Hellmann Lab
@enardhellmannwg.bsky.social

This is the beginning of our office introduction series (1/5): Meet the office of Leo, Antonia with Wilma and Felix Leo 🧠 maps FOXP2 brains Antonia 🧫 reprograms cross-species cells Felix ⚙️ drives Part 2 of every project Wilma 🐶 heads cable-integrity testing by chewing #LabLife #BlueskyScience

Enard/Hellmann Lab reposted

LMU München
@lmu.de

🎉 50 years of the Faculty of #Biology - and 20 years of interdisciplinary work at the #Biocenter! “Biology today is a big data science,” says Professor Stibor. AI, biodiversity loss & synthetic biology will be key topics of the future.📖 To the interview: www.lmu.de/en/newsroom/...

Enard/Hellmann Lab reposted

Boyan Bonev
@boyanbonev.bsky.social

🚨New preprint from @bonevlab.bsky.social 🚨: What are the key epigenetic mechanisms that drive species-specific gene regulation during primate neurogenesis - and how do they contribute to the evolution of the human neocortex? Here’s what we discovered 👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

biorxiv.org3D Epigenome Evolution Underlies Divergent Gene Regulatory Programs in Primate Neural DevelopmentThe expansion of the neocortex is a hallmark of human evolution and is closely linked to neural stem cell biology. Yet, the epigenetic mechanisms driving divergent gene regulation during primate neuro...

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