Stem Cells, Regeneration & Evolution

Happy to share our review on ROS evolution, regeneration and therapeutics, published in Cell Mol Life Sciences. Led by our former PhD student Aurore Vullien, co-supervised with @rottingerlab.bsky.social in collab. with @christinerampon.bsky.social and J. John & E. Amaya. doi.org/10.1007/s000...

1/3 Remember our #Magnificent8? 8 mysterious lineages related to animals, known only from environmental DNA. 🧬 We suspected they were just the tip of the iceberg, hiding many more "unknown unknowns". Our new preprint suggests we were right. 🧵 👉https://bit.ly/3TUYowB #protistsOnSky

How does gene expression change during regeneration? Are specific enhancers activated or is there extensive genome re-modelling? Working with the team of Guillermo Orsi, we show that insect (cricket) and crustacean (Parhyale) genomes become re-modelled on a genome-wide scale.

Researchers in #ScienceAdvances have demonstrated that brief physical contact between healthy and bleached coral can restore algae to the bleached coral, leading to their full recovery. https://scim.ag/4ilLAZq

#Mastodon paper was published in @dev-journal.bsky.social. A great home for this outstanding piece of software, long in the making. @preibischs.bsky.social ambitious plan for SPIM data processing and analysis from 2007 is finally finished 😀 journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

ICYMI from the @cigliolalab.bsky.social 🔗 to paper: www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Our paper’s out! 🐟👀 How does the four-eyed fish Anableps see in air and water at once? It expanded its air-facing ventral retina and redeployed existing opsins there. Congrats Louise Perez @perezlouise.bsky.social & Lina Shi! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

1. CRISPR came from basic research on bacteria. 2. Optogenetics started with a discovery in algae. 3. The GFP protein comes from jellyfish. The biggest breakthroughs all trace to scientists following their curiosity, and this is one huge reason why we must keep funding basic research!

Most animal species pack sperm DNA with protamines instead of histones. Protamines are essential for male fertility. They are among the fastest-evolving genes in animals. That makes little sense. We think we know why, in a new paper led by @ching-hochang.bsky.social. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Some glass sponges may be the oldest animals on Earth. Individuals of Monorhaphis chuni are estimated at over 11,000 years old, and they build a single skeletal spike up to 3m long, the largest natural glass structure any animal makes. 🧪 #SpongeThursday #HowToBuildAGiant #marinelife

En cette Journée internationale du poulpe, Gallica invite les amateurs de pieuvres et de poulpes à plonger dans cette sublime “Histoire naturelle des céphalopodes” (1835-1848) ! c.bnf.fr/YmO

In our new paper by Kata Szabó et al. we present optimised sample-preparation workflows for volume electron microscopy for entire small marine organisms. The workflow includes high-pressure freezing, various freeze substitution protocols and synchrotron […] [Original post on biologists.social]

Welcome Melina Thetiot, new member of the lab @ijmonod.bsky.social, assistant professor in Neurobiology at @upcite.bsky.social. Melina is coming from our colleagues' lab @zenlabpasteur.bsky.social. She will investigate the role of the nervous system in #Platynereis regeneration !

A cost-effective method for finding cis-regulatory elements in a large genome (Parhyale, 3.6 Gb), combining info from chromatin accessibility (bulk & single-nucleus ATACseq) and cross-species sequence conservation (low coverage sequencing from 3 additional Parhyale species) Now published in eLife!

We have a new branch in the family tree of animals: Atreyea- a previously unrecognized lineage among the closest unicell relatives of animals. Led by @konsmitsi.bsky.social & @freejakoba.bsky.social together with a fantastic team of collaborators. 🔗 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.... #protistsOnSky

For those of you who, like me, missed the Vatican #EvoDevo: www.pas.va/en/events/20..., don't worry, there will be a more earthly local version next week (Friday) in Cambridge Dept of Zoology, program here: londonevodevo.co.uk. Can't promise cardinal vestments in the background though.

Les chauves-souris présentent l’une des plus incroyables trajectoires d’évolution chez les mammifères. On en connaît plus de 1500 espèces ! Comment cette diversité est-elle apparue ? Pour le savoir, direction les grottes et les forêts de Trinité-et-Tobago. Reportage avec lemonde.fr

One of the output of a 15 y collaboration with biologists @stemdevevo.bsky.social trying to understand what stem cells are through philosophy, phylogeny and expe. This one is more philo. Writting led by @gugli-militello.bsky.social during his post-doc www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

New work from @spinalorga.bsky.social & co PAX3 doesn't just pattern the dorsal neural tube, it links metabolism to mechanics PAX3 sustains upper glycolysis and mannose-dependent glycosylation, which cluster N-cadherin & strengthens adherens junctions www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Not every cell react the same way to caspase activation. In our recent study (led by @tomcumming.bsky.social and initiated by @avillars.bsky.social ), we tried to better understand what explains this difference and outlined a role of past caspase exposure 👇 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Le journaliste qui a rencontré les équipes de l'IRD au Sénégal ou au Niger note qu'alors que les crises de l'Afrique de l'Ouest altèrent cette coopération Nord/Sud, il faut en sauvegarder les outils pour la redéployer lorsque les conditions en seront réunies. theconversation.com/fusion-ird-c...

Yay! It's publication week for @kendallbclay.bsky.social and @taylormlanier.bsky.social's doctoral research! 1/6 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

📢 Paris Postdoc Seminar 📅 October 6th 📍Institut Jacques Monod Sophie Peron ( @institutimagine.bsky.social ) will present a @parispostdocs.bsky.social on the theme " Coordination between cell cycle and differentiation in planarian stem cells" ➡️ buff.ly/7swy9Oy

Plongée dans le monde fascinant de micro-organismes unicellulaires doués d’intelligence

Fantastic 1st day of the «  cell plasticity in dvpmt and diseases » meeting in Paris. Looking forward to the regeneration session tomorrow - with @jesslamae.bsky.social .

Incredibly excited to share my new preprint! 🪰🧬 Ever wondered how germ cells can specify their fate without having a dedicated transcriptional program? We found that germ cells keep the uncommitted chromatin state of the early embryo www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Remi - PhD student - had the chance to participate to the first Spatial-Cell-ID Summer School (SCID 2026) « Spatial OMICs to uncover cell identity during developmental processes » in Aussois. Many exciting experiments ahead with @zaycha.bsky.social !

Lovely to see several pieces of our ctenophore work featured in this beautiful new story from @quantamagazine.org 🪼 Great piece by @mstarling.bsky.social, also featuring work by @stevehaddock.bsky.social, @arnausebe.bsky.social & @hejnol.bsky.social. www.quantamagazine.org/ctenophores-...

What a terrific visual example of why the #zebrafish is such an important model when we study aging and regeneration!

Alaskan Sponge diversity news! #spongeThursday www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-stor...

Our @natrevgenet.nature.com article out now. This is a hymn to danionin fishes, with sections on phylogeny, reproduction, immunity, morphology, regeneration and behaviour. rdcu.be/CntbxvfZsUba

Institut Curie, Paris, symposium: Where Form Takes Shape October 27-28th 2026 (after the yearly International Developmental Biology course) Registration before October 10th (for free !): docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... There will be short talks and posters selected from abstracts.

Aux assises des sociétés savantes à Paris, des chercheurs ont lancé une série de colloques, partout en France, avec l’objectif de lutter contre le déclin de la recherche et le désengagement de l’Etat. ➡️ https://l.liberation.fr/vCP

Les polychètes 📍 Dorsale médio-atlantique Observé lors de la campagne Momarsat 2024, ce polychète est un ver marin, appartenant au groupe des annélides vivant dans des sources hydrothermales profondes de la dorsale médio-atlantique.

My new book, Phylogenetic Biology, is now published. Available online for free at dunnlab.org/phylogenetic... . Physical copies can be purchased at shop.lightningsource.com/b/085?params... or your favorite bookstore.

Ne nous inquiétons pas, les nouvelles règles de l’appel générique de l’@agencerecherche.bsky.social et les coupes budgétaires du @cnrs.fr vont nous permettre de redresser tout cela… #TimeForaPoliticalChange

Lovely covering of this euplectellid glass sponge, 2025 m North Tutuila Mound, American Samoa #Okeanos

A lovely colonial octocoral called Ramuligorgia, about 2055 m North Tutuila Mound, American Samoa #Okeanos #octocoralfriay

Our new paper in Science Advances asks how animals' genomes have changed since their origin from a common ancestor over 600 million years ago, and what patterns in their DNA have arisen in the churn of speciation and extinction. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Excited to share a new preprint from the lab, by @andrewmatheson.bsky.social and team, where we dive into the superpower of newts: plasticity! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Like many good projects, this started with a serendipitous observation... 🧵1/5

New research from #ProcB: A morphological phylogenetic approach to the evolution of symmetry in animals doi.org/10.1098/rspb... | #Ecology #Evolution #Palaeontology

Job Alert: I'm looking for an enthusiastic research assistant to join my team at the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute. 🔗 Apply here: www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/biomedi... Applications close August 10. Please consider sharing to help spread the word.

What happens when evolution adds an extra pair of eyes? Male mayflies evolve an extra pair of dorsal compound eyes, the Turbanate eyes, thought to help males detect females during mating swarms. we have investigate how this remarkable evolutionary novelty develops. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Probably flatworms are not the first animal group that comes to your mind when you think about coloniality. However, some of them can form colony-like linear chains composed of zooids. Here, we investigate why and how those chains are formed in the genus Stenostomum: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Happy to share the final version of our study on the evolution of chromatin states across eukaryotes, out today in @natgenet.nature.com Led by @crisnava.bsky.social and @seanamontgomery.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... Some highlights below

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...

Our Dispatch "Evolution: Ancient monoamines in a neuron-less animal" out in @currentbiology.bsky.social. Monoamine signaling and behavioral responses in placozoans suggest this system predates bilaterians. authors.elsevier.com/a/1nYJl3QW8S... @annaferraioli.bsky.social @msarscentre.bsky.social

A huge congratulations to Zheng and the entire Guo lab for this beautiful story! Very cool mechanism! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#ResultatScientifique🔎| Pourquoi les neurones sont-ils tous différents ? Des scientifiques dévoilent les mécanismes à l'origine de leur identité 🧠 ▶️ buff.ly/l676Amf ✍️ Félix Simon/Claude Desplan 📕 @NatureNeuro 🤝 @cnrs.fr @ijmonod.bsky.social @upcite.bsky.social @cnrs-idf-villejuif.bsky.social