Alex Schier

Alex Schier

@schierlab.bsky.social

Schierlab. Biozentrum Basel. Development. Behavior. Zebrafish. Curious.

2.5K followers71 following48 posts

Alex Schier reposted

EMBL DB unit
@embldbunit.bsky.social

How does an embryo build itself? Join experimentalists and theorists as they discuss the principles of biological forms, from molecular mechanisms to whole organisms #EESDevelopment

EMBL Events@events.embl.org

Are you interested in developmental biology? Then we have news for you: #EESDevelopment is coming to EMBL next year which will explore how emerging technologies and transformative concepts are reshaping the field. 🧪 Submit your abstract by 2 March: s.embl.org/ees27-02-bl

Alex Schier reposted

EMBL Events
@events.embl.org

Are you interested in developmental biology? Then we have news for you: #EESDevelopment is coming to EMBL next year which will explore how emerging technologies and transformative concepts are reshaping the field. 🧪 Submit your abstract by 2 March: s.embl.org/ees27-02-bl

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Alex Schier
@schierlab.bsky.social

This transgenic line also enabled us to sequence the neurons. For a small fish, Danionella is getting plenty of senses from its body: temperature, mechanical, nutrients, pain, inflammation. Comparing to the well-characterized mouse vagus, we find that many of these gene markers are conserved. 3/4

Alex Schier
@schierlab.bsky.social

Borrowing from zebrafish, we created a transgenic line to label the D. cerebrum sensory vagus. Thanks to the transparency of Danionella adults, we could trace and count these neurons. The adult part made a difference: we found that the vagus is asymmetric in males (but not females)! 2/4

Alex Schier reposted

Biozentrum, University of Basel
@biozentrum.unibas.ch

Congratulations to Yuping Li on being awarded a prestigious ERC Starting Grant. In her project, she will investigate how bacteria detect and defend themselves against giant viruses known as jumbophages.🧪 @yuping-li.bsky.social @unibas.ch @erc.europa.eu #ERCStartingGrant #research #lifesciences

biozentrum.unibas.chERC Starting Grant for Yuping LiGiant viruses are masters in evading bacterial defense systems. With a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC), Prof. Yuping Li will investigate how bacteria detect and fight these gia...
Alex Schier
@schierlab.bsky.social

What regulates the urge to sleep? William Joo and colleagues identified brain regions that reflect how long mice have been awake. Strikingly, inhibiting one of these regions reduces sleep by 70%, without the major behavioral deficits associated with sleep deprivation. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.comWake-activated neuronal populations that regulate sleep drive - NatureWhole-brain activity mapping, targeted cell manipulations and electrophysiology in mice identify wake-activated neuronal populations that are crucial for sleep drive and can persistently red...
Alex Schier
@schierlab.bsky.social

What regulates the urge to sleep? William Joo and colleagues identified brain regions that reflect how long mice have been awake. Strikingly, inhibiting one of these regions reduces sleep by 70%, without the major behavioral deficits associated with sleep deprivation. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.comWake-activated neuronal populations that regulate sleep drive - NatureWhole-brain activity mapping, targeted cell manipulations and electrophysiology in mice identify wake-activated neuronal populations that are crucial for sleep drive and can persistently red...
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Alex Schier
@schierlab.bsky.social

Many thanks and congratulations to William Joo, Clare Diester, Vassilis Bitsikas, Myrto Panopoulou, Amelia Hidalgo, Konstantinos Ntemos, Rodrigo C. G. Pena, Fabia Imhof, Iris Odstrcil, Flavio Donato, Geoffrey Fucile, Daniel Kroeger and Thomas E. Scammell.

Alex Schier
@schierlab.bsky.social

What regulates the urge to sleep? William Joo and colleagues identified brain regions that reflect how long mice have been awake. Strikingly, inhibiting one of these regions reduces sleep by 70%, without the major behavioral deficits associated with sleep deprivation. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.comWake-activated neuronal populations that regulate sleep drive - NatureWhole-brain activity mapping, targeted cell manipulations and electrophysiology in mice identify wake-activated neuronal populations that are crucial for sleep drive and can persistently red...
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Alex Schier
@schierlab.bsky.social

Despite this profound reduction in sleep, most animals survived, without compensatory increases in sleep drive or the behavioral deficits typically associated with severe sleep deprivation.

Alex Schier
@schierlab.bsky.social

What regulates the urge to sleep? William Joo and colleagues identified brain regions that reflect how long mice have been awake. Strikingly, inhibiting one of these regions reduces sleep by 70%, without the major behavioral deficits associated with sleep deprivation. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.comWake-activated neuronal populations that regulate sleep drive - NatureWhole-brain activity mapping, targeted cell manipulations and electrophysiology in mice identify wake-activated neuronal populations that are crucial for sleep drive and can persistently red...
Alex Schier
@schierlab.bsky.social

Our mapping approach identified the anterior medial preoptic area and the median raphe as candidate regions that reflect sleep deficit. The median raphe neurons include serotonergic neurons, as well as a separate GABAergic population whose intrinsic excitability increases during sleep deprivation.

Alex Schier reposted

HHMI
@hhmi-science.bsky.social

"We have no business applying to this," #GilliamFellow Sara Makanani told her PI. Her mentor’s reply? "We are worthy of this." // 2nd- or 3rd-year PhD student? Talk to your faculty advisor — apps open 9/1 for our BIGGEST cohort of mentee-mentor pairs yet! bit.ly/gilliam26

Alex Schier
@schierlab.bsky.social

Come join us at the @biozentrum.unibas.ch as Professor in Climate Biophysics. Blue-sky research, inspiring colleagues, and generous support.

Ben Engel@cellarchlab.com

Super excited to launch this search for a new endowed professor at the @biozentrum.unibas.ch! Join us to build a research cluster in Climate Biophysics! 🌍🌊🌾🔬🧪 This is a unique opportunity to create a community in Basel🇨🇭working together on this timely topic! ⏳🌡️ Questions? Please reach out! 👩‍🔬👨‍🔬

Alex Schier reposted

Oded Mayseless
@mayseless.bsky.social

Replying to @mayseless.bsky.social

7/11 Luckily, @yinanwan.bsky.social and Jakob developed a powerful approach for multiplexed whole-mount gene-expression mapping. Sequentially imaging 68 genes in intact larval brains, defined anatomical and transcriptional boundaries of the olfactory bulb at cellular resolution.

Alex Schier reposted

Oded Mayseless
@mayseless.bsky.social

1/11 Excited to share my postdoc work from @schierlab.bsky.social and Rainer Friedrich! 🐟👃 How does the brain decide whether an odor is good or bad? In larval zebrafish, we find that odor preference is reflected in spatially cohesive neuronal domains of the olfactory bulb. 🧵

Alex Schier reposted

Biozentrum, University of Basel
@biozentrum.unibas.ch

🧪 A new study led by Dr. Janani Durairaj and Prof. Torsten Schwede shows that current AI models in drug discovery still face limitations. Learn more👇 @ninjani.bsky.social @torstenschwede.bsky.social @unibas.ch @snsf.ch @natureportfolio.nature.com www.biozentrum.unibas.ch/news/detail/...

biozentrum.unibas.chAI models still reach limits in drug discoveryDeveloping new medicines is a slow and costly process. For some years now, artificial intelligence (AI) has been considered a promising tool to accelerate drug discovery by identifying drug candidates...

Alex Schier reposted

Yinan Wan
@yinanwan.bsky.social

With this “Behind the paper” story, I’d like to give special thanks to two remarkable contributors whose generosity made a big difference: @jialinliu.bsky.social for the scMultiomics data behind the multiomic atlas, and Guoqiang Yu’s group for sharing ITEC cell tracking, which enabled MERFISH-FATE.

the Node@the-node.bsky.social

From fate to form: the journey to whole-embryo spatial transcriptomics In this 'Behind the paper' feature, @yinanwan.bsky.social shares the inside story of an ambitious journey with @schierlab.bsky.social & co. thenode.biologists.com/from-fate-to...

thenode.biologists.comFrom fate to form: the journey to whole-embryo spatial transcriptomics - the NodeWhere molecules meet form I have long been interested in understanding how development emerges at the intersection of molecular and spatial organization.

Alex Schier reposted

the Node
@the-node.bsky.social

From fate to form: the journey to whole-embryo spatial transcriptomics In this 'Behind the paper' feature, @yinanwan.bsky.social shares the inside story of an ambitious journey with @schierlab.bsky.social & co. thenode.biologists.com/from-fate-to...

thenode.biologists.comFrom fate to form: the journey to whole-embryo spatial transcriptomics - the NodeWhere molecules meet form I have long been interested in understanding how development emerges at the intersection of molecular and spatial organization.

Alex Schier reposted

Sally Lowell
@cellysally.bsky.social

"We want to see the academic publishing industry change in a way that benefits science, not just profits"

Theo@earthowned.bsky.social

Cancer Research UK is fed up of paying too much for open access publishing so they are completely stopping funding this activity: news.cancerresearchuk.org/2026/04/01/w...

news.cancerresearchuk.orgWhy we won’t be funding open access publishing any more - Cancer Research UK - Cancer NewsThe open access movement was bold and promising, but ultimately disappointing. Now is the time to stop and call for a new way to make publishing work…

Alex Schier reposted

James Briscoe
@jamesbriscoe.bsky.social

A question I get asked all the time by @dev-journal.bsky.social authors "Why does it cost so much to publish a paper?" We break down the finances and explain where the money goes Spoiler: quality publishing takes a village (people + infrastructure) journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

journals.biologists.com‘Why is publishing so expensive?’For many of us who work in scientific publishing, the title of this Editorial is a question we hear all the time when we're out talking to academics. And it's a perfectly reasonable one. After all, re...

Alex Schier reposted

Biozentrum, University of Basel
@biozentrum.unibas.ch

Prof. Markus Rüegg and Dr. Judith Reinhard joined the Telebasel studio to talk about progress and the ongoing challenges of the gene therapy they’ve developed to treat LAMA2-related muscular dystrophy, a currently incurable and fatal muscle disease affecting children. telebasel.ch/sendungen/pu...

telebasel.chBasler Forschende entwickeln Gentherapie gegen… | TelebaselUngefähr jedes Jahr wird in der Schweiz ein Kind mit einer schweren Muskelschwäche geboren. LAMA2-Muskeldystrophie ist unheilbar. Nun haben Forschende am…

Alex Schier reposted

University of Basel
@unibas.ch

How does a tiny cluster of cells become an embryo? Researchers @biozentrum.unibas.ch mapped gene activity across the entire zebrafish embryo, creating a 4D atlas that links gene expression to cell movement & development. www.unibas.ch/en/News-Even...

unibas.chEmbryogenesis in 4D: a developmental atlas for genes and cellsResearchers at the University of Basel create a 4D atlas revealing how thousands of genes shape embryonic development in the zebrafish embryo.

Alex Schier reposted

Yinan Wan
@yinanwan.bsky.social

Very grateful to everyone who made this work possible. I feel incredibly lucky to have worked with such an amazing team. Special thanks to: Jakob El Kholtei, KJ Jenie, @mcolomerr.bsky.social, and of course our wonderful collaborator Bogdan Bintu and my mentor @schierlab.bsky.social

Alex Schier@schierlab.bsky.social

Very happy to see this out. 👏 @yinanwan.bsky.social Bogdan Bintu and team. Whole-embryo spatial transcriptomics at subcellular resolution from gastrulation to organogenesis | free link Science www.science.org/eprint/5MHTM...

science.orgWhole-embryo spatial transcriptomics at subcellular resolution from gastrulation to organogenesisGene expression patterns underlie development, but their systematic detection in whole embryos has remained elusive. We introduce a whole-embryo imaging platform using multiplexed error-robust fluores...

Alex Schier reposted

Biozentrum, University of Basel
@biozentrum.unibas.ch

The Summer Call for our prestigious, fully funded #PhDFellowships is now open to talented early-career scientists worldwide. 🔬 Rotation-based program 🌍 International community 🗓 Apply by May 8, 2026 Apply now and join a leading life sciences institute! www.biozentrum.unibas.ch/phd/internat...

biozentrum.unibas.chBiozentrum PhD FellowshipsShare your passion for life sciences. If you are talented and highly motivated, want to broaden your horizons and are interested in a wide range of research topics, apply for one of the sought after B...

Alex Schier reposted

Pauli Group (posts by Andi Pauli)
@pauligroup.bsky.social

One more week to finalize your applications for the 2026 MBL zebrafish course at Woods Hole! Application deadline extended to March 9. Please repost and forward to anyone interested in learning 'everything zebrafish'! www.mbl.edu/education/ad...

mbl.eduZebrafish Development and Genetics | Marine Biological LaboratoryOver the past 30 years, the zebrafish has emerged as a powerful model system for the study of vertebrate development and disease. This course will focus on the development and genetics of zebrafish an...
Pauli Group (posts by Andi Pauli)@pauligroup.bsky.social

Interested in expanding your zebrafish skills or completely new to zebrafish as model system for your research question? Then this course is for YOU! Deadline for applying is on March 2nd, so get your applications in. PS: It's a fantastic course - changed my own career! www.mbl.edu/education/ad...

mbl.eduZebrafish Development and Genetics | Marine Biological LaboratoryOver the past 30 years, the zebrafish has emerged as a powerful model system for the study of vertebrate development and disease. This course will focus on the development and genetics of zebrafish an...
Alex Schier
@schierlab.bsky.social

We will miss you Madalena and follow your exciting research at MPIDresden@mpi-cbg.de‬

Madalena M. Reimão Pinto@madalenamrp.bsky.social

This past month marked the end of an era at the @schierlab.bsky.social @biozentrum.unibas.ch. It was a meaningful, intense, often challenging, but also incredibly rewarding chapter of my scientific journey. Thank you all in the Schier Lab for the unconditional support and the Schierleading!