Max Heiman

Neuron-glia interactions, collagen and other ECM, and maybe even a little bit of apical-basal polarity -- all the good stuff!

Now published in @currentbiology.bsky.social ! Leland Wexler identified a very big, previously unstudied secreted protein that attaches neuronal cilia to glia. authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Just your friendly community reminder/ public announcement that @biologists.bsky.social is a not-for-profit publisher that supports biologists and inspires biology. @dev-journal.bsky.social @jcellsci.bsky.social & more Together we can do so much more! 💪

Two small points: 1. I would rather people be able to identify some recent scientific discovery than a "famous" scientist. 2. If they are going to name a scientist, I would rather it be someone in their family or community -- ask "do you know a scientist," not "can you name a scientist".

Meet Dr. Callista Yee, a new Assistant Professor in @zoology.ubc.ca! Coming from an unconventional path, she found her footing in neuroscience research, specifically researching the mechanisms that control synaptic gene expression in C. elegans. 🔗: www.centreforbrainhealth.ca/news/how-cur...

So excited to see this fun collaboration with Andrew Chisholm out in the world. So much to do with this aECM toolkit for matrix biology, aging, stress, pathogenesis research! Found a striking diversity of localization patterns for different components.

Great choice!

This reminds me of when I joined the Mastodon social network -- I followed the keywords "nematodes" and "Hedgehog," because we were were working on a C. elegans Hh-related protein at the time, and my feed was absolutely overrun with posts from British gardening enthusiasts.

I wrote a review of clonal raider ant biology and why the species is such a good model system to study various fundamental aspects of social insect biology in the lab. Here is the online early version: www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Bloop 🫧 bloop 🫧 bloop 🫧 Fluid-filled lumens are everywhere in our body How do they get soooo big? We find that osmotic pressure vastly dominates mechanical forces in controlling lumen swelling in mouse embryos biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @louise-dagher.bsky.social @matteo-bassanini.bsky.social

Apical ECM! #aECM

"Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain replicates.)" "Song of Big Data," Whitman.

Passing through the Bighorns after visiting Sheridan College - on the way to Northwest College. Community colleges provide affordable access to higher ed for millions and enroll twice the number of students than all the private colleges and universities combined.

🪱 Read the latest work from @barrlab.bsky.social in #GENETICS that describes a #Celegans pipeline for mechanistic classification of conserved Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) associated missense variants. 🔗 buff.ly/R2nrikZ

Euchromadora´s cuticle in optical microscope vs scanning electron microscope #Nematoda #Euchromadora #Chromadoridae

Always a gamble how much Crazy Spicy Flavor Sauce to use.

I mean, I get it, mine took 8 and things have only gotten harder, but still 150 years is a long postdoc

Excited to share our new preprint! 🪲 We identify TcFabp8 as a link between lipid handling, chitin synthase-dependent cuticle formation and nanoscale cuticle organization. Combining cell biology, imaging and synchrotron SAXS/WAXS.

How is chitin synthase delivered to the right place in epidermal cells? In our recent work, we identified Sec8 and Myo15 as CHS1-interacting proteins required for its proper localization and cuticular chitin biosynthesis in insects. 🪲 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

ok, ha ha, but seriously did you know that Santa Anna (the Mexican general who took the Alamo) eventually moved to New York and helped invent Black Jack, the first US chewing gum, after importing one ton of chicle that he had intended to sell to make tires?

it’s been almost 20 years since i set up my first chemical reaction. it's still magical to me that by understanding chemistry you can fundamentally change physical matter. rearrange the same atoms in the right way, and you change the practical and monetary value of a molecule.

Apical extracellular matrix development Read this Spotlight from our special issue #DevSIextracellular by Maxwell Heiman @heiman.bsky.social and Meera Sundaram @meera-sundaram.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1242/dev....

Teaching advanced cell bio this morning and including a cautionary note about using AI. So I asked AI to draw a microtubule, thinking it would have subtle but important errors. But wow. I think dissecting everything wrong here could take all semester! Maybe a fun exam question?

Can an ant person tell me what these brown crawly ants and black flappy ants are up to? Other than a major ruckus.

"The brain is one of the most important organs in your entire head"

Can we design molecules that rewrite how organisms interact with the environment? I'm delighted to share our lab's latest work, where we use structural biology and chemistry to modulate insect behavior in a clade of destructive agricultural pests. Congrats Steve and team!

Tran, @dumontlabucsf.bsky.social et al. show that mammalian #metaphase #kinetochores undergo large-scale, complex, and elastic deformations under forces of different timescales, magnitudes, and directions. rupress.org/jcb/article/... #CellDivision #Biophysics #Condensin #Microtubules

The upcoming season of aECM club will cover #aECM glycans, aECM and pathogen interactions, and more. Learn more and sign up here: sundaramlab.com/blog/aecm-cl...

#aECM (apical extracellular matrix) is a subset of #ECMatrix that is distinct from stromal matrices or basement membranes. Anybody out there studying #mucins #ZPproteins #cuticle #glycocalyx #surfactant or the like? We need to find each other and start talking!

#aECM

"baby, you can just call me LIN-28, 'cause I have hundreds and hundreds of interactions and most of them are totally pointless"

holy guacamole it's already August?

Endoplasmic reticulum patterns insect cuticle nanostructure. From Sachi Inagaki, Shigeo Hayashi @riken-bdr.bsky.social and colleagues: rupress.org/jcb/article/... 📕 Part of "Collective Behaviors and Self-Organization in Cells" rupress.org/jcb/collecti...

I am excited to open my lab at @ibioillinois.bsky.social in Spring 2027! We will use zebrafish & other fishy friends to reveal the genetic basis of large scale changes in the vertebrate body plan, and how this impacts both human health and evolution. Join me at UIUC! 🧬🧫🔬 www.hawkinslaboratory.com

For neuroscience PhDs with a strong interest in teaching and mentoring: MIT is hiring a scientific program manager to support activities around a new NIH neuroscience PhD training grant. Salary range $91k - $129k #NeuroJobs careers.peopleclick.com/careerscp/cl...