Mohammed Khallaf

Our new paper is out in @nature.com! We uncovered how a naked mole-rat queen 👑 controls an entire colony: a natural contraceptive scent that suppresses reproduction in other females! A remarkable mammalian parallel to bees and ants! 🐝🐜 @garyrlewin.bsky.social youtu.be/enfv3zJrWKM?...

Naked mole-rats rewrite the rules of mammalian biology. Many weird facts from @garyrlewin.bsky.social and @mind-and-matter.bsky.social youtu.be/Wr7MMGeitbM?...

Each naked mole-rat has its own behavioral identity! The way it moves reveals who it is, its colony, and its social rank! Great work from @yukihaba.bsky.social

So grateful to @thetransmitter.bsky.social for the opportunity to talk about a paper that truly shaped how I think about my science by @fowleruci.bsky.social and @paulkennyphd.bsky.social! They helped make causal sense of the association that people call “Mr. Big“ in the context of 🚬!

We're about to start an exciting new project with generous support from the @erc.europa.eu In SIMBIO, we want to know how bacterial endosymbionts modify neurons on the genetic and functional level and how this shapes the evolution of their host's mating behavior.

We are looking for a research assistant to join our team. brain.mpg.de/brand Apply using the link below if you are interested in doing research on the neural and genetic underpinnings of behavioral evolution. jobs.brain.mpg.de/jobposting/6...

🚨 I AM HIRING a 3-year postdoc & 4-year PhD student 🚨 [PLEASE SHARE WIDELY] My Emmy Noether @dfg.de funded Neural Circuit & Systems Evolution lab (🌟) at the @unimainz.bsky.socialÍ wants to start existing. So..., what do we need? WELL... we need you! APPLY UNTIL 21 SEPTEMBER.

For too long, we have only had 2 sex-specifically spliced genes in the mosquito. Welcome to the world, MOSN! Males: big protein. Females: small protein. Fascinating new domain of unknown function. Congrats Yael Tsitohay + Nipun Basrur. Collab with Sean Eddy + Li Zhao www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

I'll be teaching in a 2-day course at #GhentUniversity: From #EMG signals to #musclesynergies: Theory, methodology, and R workflows Open to PhD candidates, researchers, professionals. With @musclesynergies.bsky.social hands-on! 7-8 Sept 2026 Free, limited seats event.ugent.be/registration...

Thrilled to be co-organising the EMBO Workshop Comparative (neuro)science in insects, 13–16 April 2027, Engelberg 🇨🇭 with @megyounger.bsky.social, @nkonst4.bsky.social, and Yun Ding@UPENN Abstracts due 11 Dec 2026 🔗 meetings.embo.org/event/27-ins... Register and join us! #EMBOneuroInsects

Join us in Oldenburg and study the #SensoryBasis 👀👂👃🤚👅🧭, Mechanisms 🧠🧬🧪, and Impacts of #AnimalNavigation in our Cluster of Excellence "NaviSense" as a PhD student 🎓 👇 In case you would like to discuss project ideas related to #insect #navigation, feel free to contact me 🤗 🐜❤️ #NaviSense #CoE #ExStra

How do you recognize who’s who when you live mostly in the dark? 👂👃✋ Our review explores how naked mole-rats use sound, smell, and touch to maintain their remarkable social organization! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @garyrlewin.bsky.social, Firdevs Murad, Wenhan Luo, Alison Barker

Read about our latest work here www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... or let Alessandro tell you all about it (link below)!

Yahooo 🎉 We got the cover! Meet our cute cover girl 🥰: the naked mole-rat Queen! 👑 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We’re recruiting postdocs! Join our @wellcometrust.bsky.social funded programme 'Decoding competition in the brain'. How does the brain resolve competing needs and prioritise behaviour? 📅 Deadline: 1 September Apply: rezavallab.org Please share! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DSM781/r...

Finally out in @natneuro.nature.com! A forgotten memory isn't always gone. We show that forgotten memories persist as silent memory traces, can be recovered by reminders, and can even be reconstructed into false memories. Excited to finally share this work! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Been a good #PainResearch day for our lab in @phar.cam.ac.uk with 2 papers out in Journal of Neuroscience: 1. Led by @mayadannawi.bsky.social focuses on the impact of Prdm12 overexpression in adult sensory neurons www.jneurosci.org/content/earl..., walkthrough 👉 bsky.app/profile/psal...

Finally got my Canadian visa sorted (the joys of being a non-EU traveler 😅), so I’m flying out this weekend for the NeuroEthology congress! I’ll be presenting a poster on courtship behaviour and vocalisation in naked mole-rats. If anyone wants to catch up or meet for the first time, let’s chat!

For me this paper is a career highlight..truly astonishing biology! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Lab's latest: sculpting sex-biased metabolic territories in the intestine by tuning ploidy and lipid metabolism. Myc is to blame; Laura, Pedro and Chris found out www.cell.com/developmenta...

We are delighted to announce that Ahmed R. Ismaieel successfully defended his PhD thesis on the olfactory role of mouthparts, legs and genitalia in the hawkmoth Manduca sexta. Congratulations to Ahmed and his supervisors, Sonja Bisch-Knaden, @nmvandam.bsky.social, and Bill Hansson. Well done!

Beautiful work on the evolution of sensory perception. Existing neuronal lineages are often recoded throughout evolution by the expression of novel olfactory receptor genes. The Arguello lab reconstructed all the steps in this sensory neuron recoding. A must-read!

How do duplicated receptor genes "find a home" in olfactory circuits? Great study by the Arguello lab shows the re-coding of olfactory channels across species. Neat combination of phylogenetic reconstruction, sc-transcriptomics and more. Check out the pre-print: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Happy to share this amazing work! We found lactase!? activity in birds, re-gaining of sweet-taste among other adaptations to frugivory in Manakins. This helped these birds evolve complicated and energetic mating behaviors! www.cell.com/current-biol...

Come and join us @phar.cam.ac.uk for a PhD with Maxion Therapeutics www.findaphd.com/phds/project... Deadline: July 30th Funding: Home Fee status only

🚨 Preprint alert! 🚨 How does the olfactory bulb transform overlapping sensory inputs into representations that are easier to distinguish? New study by Sina Tootoonian, Yikai Yang, @andreas-t-schaefer.bsky.social @crick.ac.uk and myself.‬ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... A short 🧵 below

Here is a banger! Our new paper in @currentbiology.bsky.social is out! We have used museomics to sequence a 45yr old specimen of Drosophila enhydrobia, a rare and most unusual fly whose larvae are aquatic(!) and predatory(!). Very cool, big success. authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Excited to have this #PainResearch paper out from our @phar.cam.ac.uk lab: "Monoclonal antibody inhibition of PAR2 reduces phenotype severity and pain in murine inflammatory bowel disease" journals.lww.com/painrpts/ful...

Great!😂 @cellpress.bsky.social Garlic inhibits mating and egg laying in Aedes vector mosquitoes

And another great paper in Cell from the best ever behavioralist, Dr. Shimaa Ebrahim!!!

nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A... I’m thrilled to share my journey from the kitchen to the lab, which has ultimately led me to publish in Cell Journals. I hope you enjoy reading my latest paper:

We are looking for a postdoctoral scientist to work on challenging and exciting neuroproteomics problems. Close collaboration with @coscialab.bsky.social Apply: jobs.helmholtz-hzi.de/job/Braunsch...

@mdc-berlin.bsky.social Excited to see our paper with Sam @amapruns.bsky.social and Fabian Coscia now published. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🎉New paper out from the lab, led by @baptistepiqueret.bsky.social: ant larvae chemically suppress the reproduction of their caregivers. bit.ly/4t8uZLG An example of how social interactions are regulated at the molecular level. The work was made possible by the unique environment @mpi-ce.bsky.social

New Review 👇 The molecular evolution of vertebrate organs: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Margarida Cardoso-Moreira discusses rates of evolution of organs and cell types, molecular mechanisms of organ evolution and how complex traits contributed to the diversification of vertebrates.

Crick evolutionary biologist @margaridamcm.bsky.social is working with conservation charity ZSL to investigate an enduring mystery: how the placenta has evolved with incredible variation across species. Read the full story: www.crick.ac.uk/news/2026-03...

🗞️Our March issue is live, with killifish artwork by Dario Valenzano on the cover!🎨Read work on senescence in mammary gland remodelling, structural protein changes as readouts of Alzheimer’s disease, the 201 Parkinson’s disease trial & more ✨https://nature.com/nataging/volumes/6/issues/3

We are very proud: Julio Antonio Otárola Jiménez successfully defended his PhD thesis today! His research topic was "From Courtship to Egg-Laying: How Chemical Cues and Experience Shape Reproductive Strategies in Drosophila melanogaster". Congratulations, Julio!

Why is Spotted Wing Drosophila attracted to fruit at its prime, instead of overripe fruit like other flies? Xue and Dweck found the neuron receptor shifts responsible for this $500M agricultural problem, in this impressive 2-author work out of the CT Ag Experiment Station!

I am very happy to share that the latest work from the lab, led by Dr. Qi Xue, has been published in PNAS and is now online: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Aging killifish show systemic inflammation and accumulating DNA damage in progenitor-like immune cells, offering a window into the evolutionarily conserved mechanisms of vertebrate immune aging. Great work from Gabriele, @mdonertas.bsky.social, and the whole team. www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Drosophila santomea males frequently court other males due to specific changes in their pheromone signals and how these cues are interpreted. By rewiring chemical communication, this species shows how social signals can drive striking shifts in mating behaviour www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Happy to see this one out! Convergent and lineage-specific genomic changes shape adaptations in sugar-consuming birds | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

In collaboration with Nora Bourbia @ukhsa.bsky.social we have a fully funded (UK/home fees) PhD studentship available @phar.cam.ac.uk: "Radiotherapy induced nerve damage and pain: can we prevent it?" Naked mole-rats will be involved!

Happy to share the first paper from the lab, now out in Molecular Psychiatry! This was really a collaborative effort from a fantastic team, including key contributions from @dariabunina.bsky.social and @landthalerm.bsky.social doi.org/10.1038/s413...

Our new preprint is out! A state-dependent neural circuit resolves approach–avoidance conflicts www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Fantastic work led by Devika Bodas, with key contributions from Marine Balcou, and a great collaboration with Lisa Scheunemann Lab, fearuting Şevval Demirci.

Why do some worms graze on bacteria while others hunt and kill? Our study, published today in Nature, reveals how predatory aggression evolved in nematodes. Led by @gunizgozeeren.bsky.social and @leoboeger.bsky.social across the @jameslightfoot.bsky.social and @monikakscholz.bsky.social labs.

Now out in @currentbiology.bsky.social: neuroscientists in the lab of @felsenberg.bsky.social found that in fruit flies, re-tasting a sugar reward can weaken past memories, pointing to new ways to safely update harmful ones. www.fmi.ch/news-events/...