Welcome to our monthly trawl for developmental and stem cell biology (and related) preprints.

The preprints this month are hosted on bioRxiv – use these links to get to the section you want.

Developmental biology

• Patterning & signalling
• Morphogenesis & mechanics
• Genes & genomes
• Stem cells, regeneration & disease modelling
• Plant development
• Evo-devo

Cell Biology

Modelling

Reviews

Tools & Resources

Research practice & education

Developmental biology

| Patterning & signalling

Lineage domains and cytoskeletal cables organize a cellular square grid in a crustacean
Beatrice L. Steinert, Leo Blondel, Chandrashekar Kuyyamudi, Evangelia Stamataki, Anastasios Pavlopoulos, Cassandra G. Extavour

An optogenetic toolkit for robust activation of FGF, BMP, & Nodal signaling in zebrafish
Leanne E. Iannucci, Velanganni Selvaraj Maria Thomas, William K. Anderson, Micaela R. Murphy, Caitlin E.T. Donahue, Catherine E. Campbell, Matthew T. Monaghan, Allison J. Saul, Katherine W. Rogers

Directed conversion of porcine extended pluripotent stem cells into trophoblast-like stem cells through modulation of conserved TGF-β and ERK signaling pathways
Chi-Hun Park, Young-Hee Jeoung, JiTao Wang, Bhanu P. Telugu

Synthetic germ granules reveal a direct role of Vasa/DDX4 in RNA localization and translational activation
Ruoyu Chen, Henoc Zinga, Jay S. Goodman, Ruth Lehmann

Determinants of the Transition Zone Width of Morphogen Readouts
Jan A. Adelmann, Roman Vetter, José M. Dias, Johan Ericson, Dagmar Iber

Mechanistic tradeoffs between local and long-range signaling activity in natural and synthetic morphogens
Gavin Schlissel, Anders S. Hansen, Pulin Li

Inflammatory IL-1 signaling remodels epidermal stem cell compartments by suppressing Wnt activity
Hung Manh Phung, Ikuto Nishikawa, Nguyen Thi Kim Nguyen, Aiya K. Yesbolatova, Ahmed M. Hegazy, Tomson Kosasih, Jun Aoi, Satoshi Fukushima, Sho Hiroyasu, Hitoshi Takizawa, Aiko Sada

Cajal-Retzius fate specification is disrupted by constitutive activation of β-Catenin in hem progenitors
Amrita Singh, Arpan Parichha, Debarpita Datta, Mallika Chatterjee, Shubha Tole

Kinetic Control of Out-Of-Equilibrium Dynamics in the RhoA Signaling Cascade Shapes Actomyosin Contractility
Serena Prigent Garcia, Étienne Pinard, Camille N. Plancke, Jing Li, Shashi Kumar Suman, Loan Bourdon, Christelle Gally, Taeyoon Kim, François B. Robin

Dorsal/NF-κB exhibits a dorsal-to-ventral mobility gradient in the Drosophila embryo
Hadel Al Asafen, Natalie M. Clark, Etika Goyal, Sadia Siddika Dima, Hung-Yuan Chen, Thomas Jacobsen, Rosangela Sozzani, Gregory T. Reeves

Position Dependent Feedback Drives Scaling and Robustness of Morphogen Gradients
Lewis Scott Mosby, Zena Hadjivasiliou

TGF-β signaling regulates epithelial permeability in Drosophila ovaries by modulating adhesion independent of actomyosin contractility
Harshath Amal, Thea Jacobs, Max Lohrberg, Stefan Luschnig

Reconstructing signaling histories of single cells via perturbation screens and transfer learning
Nicholas T. Hutchins, Miram Meziane, Claire Lu, Maisam Mitalipova, David Fischer, Pulin Li

Direct cell-to-cell transport of Hedgehog morphogen is aided by the diffusible carrier Shifted/DmWif1
Carlos Jiménez-Jiménez, Gustavo Aguilar, Clara Fernández-Pardo, Markus Affolter, Isabel Guerrero

Arginine Kinase 1 regulates energy homeostasis in Drosophila muscle development
Maria Paula Zappia, Anton Westacott, Hannah Cooke, Rhianna Geary, Libby Travers, Lucia de Castro, Oliver Carty, Maxim V Frolov

Weckle is a molecular switch that diverts Toll signalling from innate immunity towards growth by engaging Yki
Maria Dolores Perez-Sanchez, Guiyi Li, Martin Moncrieffe, Francisca Rojo-Cortés, Karina Malinovska, Emily Sample, Myles Maddick, Marta Moreira, Elizabeth Connolly, Anna Parsons, Roberto Feuda, Nick J. Gay, Alicia Hidalgo

Basement membrane mechanics drives patterned response to developmental signalling
Ana Raffaelli, Tom P.J. Wyatt, Claire S. Simon, Léa M.D. Wenger, Kathy K. Niakan, Ewa K. Paluch, Kevin J. Chalut

A single-cell transcriptomic map of the Xenopus mesonephros reveals conserved nephron patterning across vertebrate kidney forms
Mark E. Corkins, Adrian Romero, MaryAnne A. Achieng, Nils O. Lindström, Rachel K. Miller

Sharp cell-type boundaries emerge from temporal coordination between morphogen signals
Ruiqi Li, Yiqun Jiang, Sarah Platt, Tianchi Xin, Ryan Driskell, Kevin A. Peterson, Sarah Van, Hainan Lam, Shagun Lukkad, Eva-LaRue Barber, Chae Ho Lim, M. Mark Taketo, Yuval Kluger, Peggy Myung

Synthetic reconstitution of planar polarity initiation reveals collective migration as a symmetry-breaking cue
Leah A Wallach, Connor D Thomas, Pulin Li

Epithelial-Mesenchymal Wnt Crosstalk Directs Planar Cell Polarity in the Developing Cochlea
Ippei Kishimoto, Abel P. David, Kevin P. Rose, Balasubramanian Narasimhan, Bradley Efron, Sara E. Billings, Erin L. Su, Wuxing Dong, Taha A. Jan, Ronna Hertzano, Alan G. Cheng

Notch-driven fate asymmetry dictates hair cell behavior via a fate-specific kinase
Emily Atlas, Caleb C. Reagor, Brian Frost, Sapna Krishnakumar, A. J. Hudspeth, Adrian Jacobo

A synNotch-based morphogen detection system reveals sFRP2 enhances Wnt3a signaling
Kosuke Mizuno, Satoshi Toda

| Morphogenesis & mechanics

Tenascin N contributes to spinal motor nerve morphogenesis during development
Charles G. Marcucci, Marieke Jones, Coleman Blanton, Sarah Kucenas

A stress-responsive morphogenetic program of the uterine epithelium safeguards the establishment of early pregnancy
Chihiro Ishizawa, Shizu Aikawa, Yamato Fukui, Xueting He, Ryoko Shimizu-Hirota, Daiki Hiratsuka, Mitsunori Matsuo, Takehiro Hiraoka, Yasushi Hirota

Cell-intrinsic compliance mechanism enables release of tensile stress to prevent tissue rupture
Chun Wai Kwan, Shunta Sakaguchi, Michiko Takeda, Takefumi Kondo, Yu-Chiun Wang

The mechanosensitive protein Zyxin influences Hippo signalling and tissue growth via adherens junctions and basal spot junctions in Drosophila
Harmanjeet Singh, Elliot Brooks, Kyoko Jinnai, Shu Kondo, Samuel A. Manning, Benjamin Kroeger, Kieran F. Harvey

Inverted Assembly of the Lens Within Ocular Organoids Reveals Alternate Paths to Ocular Morphogenesis
Elin Stahl, Miguel Angel Delgado-Toscano, Ishwariya Saravanan, Anastasija Paneva, Joachim Wittbrodt, Lucie Zilova

Long-Range Coupling of Posterior Cell Addition and Anterior Vacuolation Provides Robustness in Notochord Elongation
Carlos Camacho-Macorra, Alberto Ceccarelli, Dillan Saunders, Guillermo Serrano Nájera, Osvaldo Chara, Benjamin Steventon

Pre-cuticle DPY-6 acts as a blueprint for aECM periodic organization in C. elegans
Sophie Mazzoli, Thomas Sonntag, Emma Cadena, Claire Valotteau, Susanna K. Birnbaum, Meera V. Sundaram, Nathalie Pujol

Unified Transcriptome and Mechanics Map of the Intact Mammalian Preimplantation Embryo In Situ
Ehsan Habibi, Anubhav Sinha, Haiqian Yang, Payman Yadollahpour, Yiwei Li, Lani Lee, David A. Wollensak, Zachary D. Chiang, Denny Sakkas, Edward S. Boyden, Ming Guo, Aviv Regev, Fei Chen

A single-cell transcriptomic atlas of inner ear morphogenesis in zebrafish
Akankshi Munjal, Kalki Kukreja, Samara Williams, Toru Kawanishi, Natasha M. O’Brown, Kana Ishimatsu, Allon Klein, Sean G. Tsung-Megason, Ian A. Swinburne

Kindlin-2-Moesin interaction orchestrates sprouting angiogenesis via modulating endothelial membrane mechanics and VEGF signaling
Lu Wang, Yuxin Fu, Zeyang Yu, Yi Lei, Tianjing Yang, Jiayu Liu, Nina Ma, Yuming Liu, Kunfu Ouyang, Kai Zhang, Junhao Hu, Xi Fang, Ying Shen, Jing Zhou, Xiaohong Wang

Tissue-scale mechanics controls differentiation strategy and dynamics of epithelial multilayering
Clémentine Villeneuve, Somiealo Azote Epse Hassikpezi, Marga Albu, Matthias Rübsam, Leah C. Biggs, Sabrina Vinzens, Kai Kruse, Anubhav Prakash, Peter Zentis, Elizabeth Lawson-Keister, Gautier Follain, Johanna Ivaska, Carien M. Niessen, M. Lisa Manning, Sara A. Wickström

Mechanical memory of confinement pressure governs expansion size in epithelial monolayers
Linn Engström, Simon K Schnyder, Johannes K Ahnlide, Valeriia Grudtsyna, Martijn Gloerich, Pontus Nordenfelt, Amin Doostmohammadi, Vinay Swaminathan

| Genes & genomes

Light-entrained chromatin priming poises rapid metamorphosis in a marine sponge
Huifang Yuan, Oceane Blard, Zac Pujic, Bernard M. Degnan, Sandie M. Degnan

Single-cell multiomics identifies key nodes and cis-regulatory elements of the networks specifying the eye domains in zebrafish
Javier Macho Rendón, Rocío Polvillo, Álvaro Gónzalez-Cid, Jorge Corbacho, Silvia Naranjo, Sofia Manzo, Ana Sousa-Ortega, Ana Fernández-Miñán, Juan Tena, Juan Ramón Martínez-Morales

Reciprocal zebrafish-medaka hybrids reveal maternal control of zygotic genome activation timing
Krista R. Briedis-Gert, Gunnar Schulze, Maria Novatchkova, Karin Panser, Luis Enrique Cabrera Quio, Anja Koller, Yixuan Guo, Bradley R. Cairns, Eivind Valen, Andrea Pauli

A Multi-tissue Transcriptomic-Metabolomic Map Linking Maternal High-Fiber Diet to Reduced Offspring Type 2 Diabetes
Tetsuto Katsura, Oluwagbotemi Omojola, Antwi-Boasiasko Oteng, Peng Jiang, Katherine A. Overmyer, Josh Coon, Amadou Gaye, Huishi Toh

A transcriptional code controlling fluid shear stress-induced gene expression
Lucija Fleisinger, Susann Bruche, Hyewon Lim, Anna Rataj, Helena Rodriguez-Caro, Amaury Genovese, Vinesh Vinayachandran, Svanhild Nornes, Dorota Szumska, Dhruv S Gupta, Indrika Ratnayaka, Kira Chouliaras, Marek Giers, Simon J Conway, Alice Neal, Sophie Payne, Martin A Schwartz, Mukesh K Jain, Brian G Coon, Sarah De Val

Single-cell multiomic approaches define a gradual, spatially-regulated epigenetic and transcriptional transition from embryonic to adult neural stem cells
Beatrix S. Wang, Konstantina Karamboulas, Nareh Tahmasian, Daniel J. Dennis, David R. Kaplan, Freda D. Miller

Male fertility is independent of Enh13 control of Sox9 testicular expression
Maor Lubman, Meshi Ridnik, Isabelle Stévant, Yael Kimchi Djanshvili, Elisheva Abberbock, Shelly Ziv Lhermann, Nitzan Gonen

A dual-phase enhancer couples progenitor maintenance and pancreatic lineage stability
Marta Duque, João Amorim, Joana Teixeira, Beatriz Custódio, Mafalda Galhardo, Francisco Camões Magalhães, Joana Marques, Ana Paula Pêgo, José Bessa

Enhancer-mediated metabolic pre-patterning defines trabecular cardiomyocyte identity prior to morphogenesis
Costantino Parisi, Shikha Vashisht, Mohammad Salar Ghasemi Nasab, Kandhadayar Gopalan Srinivasan, Katarzyna Misztal, Marcin Zagorski, Cecilia Winata

ERH elicits cell lineage restriction in mammalian preimplantation development and differentiation from pluripotency via H3K9me3-heterochromatin
Andrew Katznelson, Blake Hernandez, Kylea Tapia, Holly Fahning, Adam Burton, Jingchao Zhang, Maria-Elena Torres-Padilla, Nicolas Plachta, Kenneth S. Zaret, Ryan L. McCarthy

A conserved C. elegans zinc finger-homeodomain protein, ZFH-2, continuously required for structural integrity and function of alimentary tract and gonad
Antoine Sussfeld, Berta Vidal, Surojit Sural, Daniel M. Merritt, G. Robert Aguilar, Yasmin Ramadan, Oliver Hobert

The Nkx2.3–Nr5a1 gene cascade plays a crucial role in spleen-specific vascular architecture and marginal zone formation
Kanako Miyabayashi, Koji Ono, Tetsuya Sato, Ayano Yahagi, Masanori Iseki, Katsuhiko Ishihara, Takami Mori, Miki Inoue, Ryuki Shimada, Kei-ichiro Ishiguro, Tomohiro Ishii, Jongsung Noh, Man Ho Choi, Takashi Baba, Yasuyuki Ohkawa, Emi Kiyokage, Kazunori Toida, Yuichi Shima

A Phospho-Switch for Cell Fate Control
Jin Ming, Xianzhuang Liu, Zexiao Jia, Wei Shi, Jiajun Li, Shikun Wang, Yulin Chen, Shixian Lin, Yu Liang, Peng Guo, Hanqing Zhao, Yuxiang Yao, Ruona Shi, Xiaofei Zhang, Yuanyue Shan, Yu Fu, Bo Wang, Chengchen Zhao, Duanqing Pei

Mitotic bookmarking by Prox1 preserves mammalian neuronal lineage identity memory via promoting timely H3K27me3 restoration
Chouin Wong, Jie Liu, Haoran Yang, Haotian Li, Xiaoqi Luo, Tingyi Li, Zili Chen, Jingyi Chu, Yuying Shen, Shuai Long, Yong Zhang, Yan Song

A Mediator-dependent hypertranscriptional program governs neural stem cell fate decisions in vivo
Tiago Baptista, Daniela Lopes, Ana Rita Rebelo, Catarina CF Homem

Single-Cell Atlas of Transcription and Chromatin States Reveals Regulatory Programs in the Human Brain
Yang Xie, Lei Chang, Guojie Zhong, Jonathan A. Rink, Tatiana Báez-Becerra, Ethan Armand, Wubin Ding, Kai Li, Eric Bonne, Audrey Lie, Hannah S Indralingam, Keyi Dong, Timothy Loe, Bohan Huang, Zhaoning Wang, Ariana S. Barcoma, Jackson K. Willier, Kyle W. Knutson, Jiayi Liu, Silvia Cho, Stella Cao, Kaitlyn G. Russo, Carissa K. Young, Jessica Arzavala, Yareli Sanchez, Aleksandra Bikkina, Natalie Schenker-Ahmed, Colin Kern, Zoey Zhao, Amit Klein, Jesus Flores, Chu-Yi Tai, Jacqueline Olness, Alexander Monell, Siavash Moghadami, Cesar Barragan, Chumo Chen, William Owens, Carolyn O’Connor, Michelle Liem, Mikayla V. Marrin, Cynthia Rose, Shane N. Alt, Nora Emerson, Julia Osteen, Jacinta Lucero, Daofeng Li, Rebecca D. Hodge, Ting Wang, C. Dirk Keene, Xiangming Xu, Quan Zhu, Joseph R. Ecker, M. Margarita Behrens, Bing Ren

DNA supercoiling links transcription and chromatin architecture during human stem cell differentiation
Consuelo Perez, Pierre Murat, Andrew Zeller, Kim C. Liu, Alastair Crisp, Julian E. Sale

Matched single-cell chromatin, transcriptome, and surface marker profiling captures in vivo epigenomic reprogramming during basal-to-luminal transition in the mammary gland
Anna Schwager, Eve Moutaux, Adeline Durand, Alexandra Van Keymeulen, Amélie Viaene, Mélanie Miranda, Louisa Hadj Abed, Simon Besson-Girard, Marion Lambault, Délia Dupré, Grégoire Jouault, Mélissa Saichi, Juliette Bertorello, Simon Dumas, Mathias Schwartz, Marthe Laisné, Justine Marsolier, Manuel Guthmann, Lorraine Bonneville, Urvashi Chitnavis, Déborah Bourc’his, Elisabetta Marangoni, Nicolas Servant, Cédric Blanpain, Leïla Perié, Céline Vallot

| Stem cells, regeneration & disease modelling

Neonatal diethylstilbestrol exposure disrupts uterine epithelial apical-basal polarity and partial EMT state
Rachel E. Bainbridge, Wendy N. Jefferson, Tianyuan Wang, Sara A. Grimm, Carmen J. Williams

PIK3CA-related overgrowth spectrum (PROS) zebrafish models reveal pan-lineage developmental dysregulation
Hannah Brunsdon, Nuoya Wang, Micha Sam Brickman Raredon, Ralitsa R Madsen, Robert K Semple, E Elizabeth Patton

Maternal-fetal immune conflict contributes to male-specific impairments in a mouse model of neurodevelopmental disorders
Irene Sanchez-Martin, Bharti Kukreja, Paige Henderson, Qianyu Lin, Daniel DiMartino, Valerie Bagan, Justin Park, Brian T. Kalish, Lucas Cheadle

PRDM16 is necessary for sensory neuronal development in the Trigeminal Ganglion
Fahmida Raha, Qiman Gao, Lomeli C. Shull, Kristin B. Artinger

Leucettinib-21 decreases dosage effects of DYRK1A in human trisomy 21 iPSC-derived neural cells
Nicole R. West, Mattias F. Lindberg, Julien Dairou, Shawn MacGregor, Sahith Puthireddy, Laurent Meijer, Anita Bhattacharyya

Mutant FGFR3 restricts bone yet expands cortex via ERK-mediated self-repression
Zhuangzhi Zhang, Zhejun Xu, Tongye Fu, Wenhui Zheng, Zizhuo Sha, Chuannan Yang, Feihong Yang, Jialin Li, Jing Ding, Zhengang Yang

Hypoxia differentially affects coronary vessel formation during heart development
Sophie Payne, Susann Bruche, Dorota Szumska, Alice Neal, Mark D Preston, Sarah De Val

Pancreatic Duct Cells as a Potential Source for Human Islet Neogenesis: Insights from Imaging Mass Cytometry
Rui Liang, Tengli Liu, Lanqiu Zhang, Wenmiao Ma, Huixia Ren, Shusen Wang

Rp-vasa: a bona fide Primordial Germ Cell marker that drives embryonic expression in the Chagas disease vector Rhodnius prolixus
G. Martins, M. Berni, T. Guedes-Silva, D. Bressan, J. Vieira, M. Cardoso, A. Pane, V. Gantz, E. Bier, H.M Araujo

Two axolotl-adapted cell-ablation platforms reveal macrophage-dependent processes essential for spinal-cord and skeletal regeneration
Gabriela Johnson, Andrew Hart, Markus Sujansky, Joel H. Graber, James W. Godwin

The regulatory landscape of optic fissure closure in the vertebrate eye
Brian Ho Ching Chan, Mariya Moosajee, Holly Hardy, James Prendergast, Joe Rainger

Evidence that injury can cause Drosophila gut differentiated, polyploid enterocytes to be recruited as stem cells via paligenosis
Dongkook Park, Robert M. Lawrence, Tyler Jackson, Hongjie Li, Jason C. Mills

The abnormal C-terminus in DVL1 impacts Robinow Syndrome phenotypes
Shruti S. Tophkhane, Gamze Akarsu, Sarah J. Gignac, Katherine Fu, Stephanie Xie, Esther M. Verheyen, Joy M. Richman

HSD17B7 is required for the function of sensory hair cells by regulating cholesterol synthesis
Yuqian Shen, Ziyang Wang, Xun Wang, Fuping Qian, Mingjun Zhong, Xin Wang, Jing Cheng, Dong Liu

Regeneration can take place across Drosophila compartments or segments with different Hox gene expression
Rafael Alejandro Juárez-Uribe, Paloma Martín, Laura Utiel, Blanca L. Arrabal, Marina Blanco, Roberto Yagüe-Serrano, Eduardo Cazalla, Ernesto Sánchez-Herrero

Intellectual disability risk gene RFX4 regulates cortical neurogenesis by restraining neuronal differentiation
Julianna J. Determan, Gareth Chapman, Sydney R. Crump, Faiza Batool, Sofia Malik, Taranjit S. Gujral, William Buchser, Caleb Valentine, Serena Elia, Monica Sentmanat, Xiaoxia Cui, Haley Jetter, Kristen L. Kroll

Brain morphological pattern is associated with the presence, severity, and transition of transdiagnostic psychiatric disorders in preadolescents
Nanyu Kuang, Christopher J Hammond, Betty Jo Salmeron, Xiang Xiao, Danni Wang, Laura Murray, Hong Gu, Tianye Zhai, Hui Zheng, Justine Hill, Maria Scavinicky, Hanbing Lu, Amy Janes, Thomas J Ross, Yihong Yang

4D Single-Cell Spatial Transcriptomics Reveals Dynamic Morphogenetic Gradients and Regenerative Domains in Planarians
Kai Han, Yue Chen, Yao Li, Lidong Guo, Yuxiaofei Wang, Xiawei Liu, Yaru Lin, Zhi Huang, Qun Liu, Wenjie Guo, Rui Zhang, Wandong Zhao, Langchao Liang, Xiaoyu Wei, Li Zhou, Xuebin Mao, Jiaqi Wang, Weijian Wu, Hongwei Pan, Tao Yang, He Zhang, Xiaoshan Su, Shanshan Liu, Wenwei Zhang, Longqi Liu, Søren Tvorup Christensen, Jifeng Fei, Xin Liu, Guangyi Fan, Hanbo Li, Ying Gu, Jian Wang, Huanming Yang, Gang Pei, Xun Xu, An Zeng, Mengyang Xu

Drosophila ryanodine receptor gene triggers functional and developmental muscle properties and could be used to assess the impact of human RYR1 mutations
Monika Zmojdzian, Teresa Jagla, Florian Cherik, Magda Dubinska-Magiera, Marta Migocka-Patrzalek, Malgorzata Daczewska, John Rendu, Krzysztof Jagla, Catherine Sarret

Asymmetric Histone Inheritance Regulates Olfactory Stem Cell Fates During Regeneration
Binbin Ma, Guanghui Yang, Jonathan Yao, Charles Wu, Jean Pinckney Vega, Gabriel Manske, Saher Sue Hammoud, Satrajit Sinha, Abhyudai Singh, Haiqing Zhao, Xin Chen

A knock-in Six2Cre line reveals transient interstitial potential in nephron progenitors
Azadeh Haghighitalab, Fariba Nosrati, Zeinab Dehghani-Ghobadi, Mohammed Sayed, Christopher Ahn, Yueh-Chiang Hu, Eunah Chung, Hee-Woong Lim, Joo-Seop Park

Lack of specificity of progenitor responses to injury in regeneration
Cecilia E. Pellegrini, Peter W. Reddien

Unique mineralization pattern revealed in TBCK syndrome mouse model
Kaitlin A. Katsura, Yuchen Jiang, Marius Didziokas, Nir Z. Badt, Sonia Dougherty, Kyle H. Vining, Elizabeth J. Bhoj

Pre-clinical models of idiopathic scoliosis implicate sex-specific roles for complement activity in modulating spinal curve severity
Vida Erfani, Brian Ciruna

Adipocyte-Derived Amino Acid Storage Proteins are Required for Germline Stem Cell Maintenance in Adult Drosophila Females
Anna B. Zike, Mekenzi O. Hazen, Madison G. Abel, Eleanor B. Goldstone, Robert C. Eisman, Lesley N. Weaver

Cell-autonomous Wnt activity promotes transient re-programming and cell cycle re-entry of coronary artery endothelial cells
Bhavnesh Bishnoi, Alfia Nirguni Saini, Vinay Rao, Omkar Golatkar, Ravindra Kailasrao Zirmire, Shruthi Viswanath, Perundurai Subramaniam Dhandapany, Soumyashree Das

Niche-dependent modular regulation of the stem cell transcriptome separates cell identity and potential
Amelie Raz, Hafidh Hassan, Yukiko Yamashita

TNAP and PHOSPHO1 function synergistically to afford critical control over the mineralisation of the postnatal murine skeleton
Lucie E Bourne, Aikta Sharma, Scott Dillon, Jacob Keen, Soher N Jayash, Natalie Crump, Lucinda AE Evans, Maya Karmali, Worachet Promruk, Claire E Clarkin, Sonoko Narisawa, Louise Stephen, Brian L Foster, José Luis Millán, Colin Farquharson, Katherine A Staines

Spinal cord regeneration deploys adult molecular programs that do not recapitulate embryonic development
Yuxiao Xu, Amulya Saini, Wenda Zhang, Lili Zhou, Mayssa H. Mokalled

Tissue composition shapes differential skeletal integration strategies during axolotl limb regeneration
Rita Aires, Sean D. Keeley, Kerstin Brandt, Mário Carreira, Doğa Berşan Güneş, Yagiz Savci, Ulrike Anne Friedrich, Andreas Dahl, Can Aztekin, Tatiana Sandoval-Guzmán

Endocardial TIE1 synergizes with TIE2 to regulate the atrial internal muscular network assembly
Kai Ding, Beibei Xu, Xinhao Yu, Xiwen Jia, Taotao Li, Xin Shen, Junda Li, Xudong Cao, Yahui Liu, Zhen Zhang, Yulong He

Hypoxia-activated scleraxis a mediates epicardial progenitor differentiation into a unique cardiac perivascular cell type
Björn Perder, Yu Xia, Jun Yao, Miaoyan Qiu, Alvin Gea Chen Yao, Muhammad Naeem, Paul Zumbo, Ignace Van der Wee, Avi Yakubov, Kazu Kikuchi, Doron Betel, Todd Evans, Michael R. Harrison, Jingli Cao

| Plant development

A Functional Basis for the Developmental Sequence of the Macrostructure of the Venus Flower Basket (Euplectella aspergillum)
Y. Mistry, S. Morankar, D. Kingsbury, N. Chawla, C. A. Penick, D. Bhate

Naturally occurring variation in gene-associated transposable elements impacts gene expression and phenotypic diversity in woodland strawberry
Santiago Priego-Cubero, Rocio Tolley, Julia Llinares-Gómez, Camila Zlauvinen, Tuomas Toivainen, Timo Hytönen, Carmen Martín-Pizarro, Ileana Tossolini, Pablo A. Manavella

Toxic metals increase root hair density by reducing epidermal cell length
Julia Zheku, Thea Do, M. Arif Ashraf

Extracellular calcium modulates pollen tube growth and guidance in Arabidopsis thaliana
Kumi Matsuura-Tokita, Yoko Mizuta, Daisuke Kurihara, Tetsuya Higashiyama

WUSCHEL modulates jasmonate signaling to control the balance between growth and defense in the shoot apical meristem
Pengfei Fan, Panagiotis Boumpas, Christian Wenzl, Yanfei Ma, Gernot Poschet, Jiao Zhao, Thomas Greb, Jan U. Lohmann

Mechanical coordination of counter-gradient growth maintains organ curvature in the apical hook
Sara Raggi, Hemamshu Ratnakaram, Adrien Heymans, Loitongbam Lorinda Devi, Özer Erguvan, Siamsa M. Doyle, François Jobert, Asal Atakhani, Sijia Liu, Manuel Petit, Jürgen Kleine-Vehn, Krzysztof Wabnik, Stéphane Verger, Stéphanie Robert

A visualization framework for cell division activity and orientation in pre-anthesis ovaries of Prunus species
Ayame Shimbo, Soichiro Nishiyama, Tatsuya Katsuno, Akane Kusumi, Hisayo Yamane, Masahiro M. Kanaoka, Ryutaro Tao

Transformers Outperform ConvNets for Root Segmentation: A Systematic Comparison Across Nine Datasets
Abraham George Smith, Sotiris Lamprinidis, Anand Seethepalli, Larry M. York, Eusun Han, Patrick Möhl, Kyriaki Boulata, Kristian Thorup-Kristensen, Jens Petersen

Evolution of moss leaf-like organs through variations in deeply conserved developmental principles
Wenye Lin, Loann Collet, Laure Mancini, Mandar Deshpande, Brendan Lane, Benjamin P. Lapointe, Agnieszka Bagniewska-Zadworna, Anne-Lise Routier-Kierzkowska, Richard S. Smith, Yoan Coudert, Daniel Kierzkowski

Ca²⁺ oscillations promote microtubule-band turnover and support tip growth in Arabidopsis zygotes
Hikari Matsumoto, Zichen Kang, Tomonobu Nonoyama, Yusuke Kimata, Satoru Tsugawa, Minako Ueda

Effects of lovastatin on auxin transport and root development in Arabidopsis thaliana
Veronica Giourieva, Christos Tersenidis, Alkiviadis Athanasiadis, Stylianos Poulios, Anna Kouskouveli, Konstantinos Vlachonasios, Emmanuel Panteris, George Komis

| Eco-evo-devo

Ancient origin of the dorso-ventral patterning system of vertebrate paired fins
Rebecca E. Dale, Silke Berger, Sara Alaei, Adele Barugahare, Marcus C. Davis, Laura Perlaza-Jimenez, Frank J. Tulenko, Peter D. Currie

Embryonic and larval development of the Pacific saury Cololabis saira: Distinctive characteristics of a rapidly growing beloniform fish
Rie Kusakabe, Shinya Yamauchi, Shigehiro Kuraku

Age- and Light-Dependent Changes in the Zebrafish Olfactory Epithelium
George B. Chapman, Rania Abutarboush, Victoria Connaughton

Thrifty phenotypes in ants: Extending a human developmental hypothesis to a superorganism
Érik Plante, Ehab Abouheif, Jean-Philippe Lessard

Thermal Plasticity of Stage-specific Development Time and Adult Body Size under Temperature Shifts: A Case Study Using Drosophila melanogaster
Aradhya Chattopadhyay, Rishav Roy, Payel Biswas, Shampa M. Ghosh

The dynamic evolution of panarthropod germ cell specification mechanisms
Jonchee A. Kao, Emily L. Rivard, Rishabh R. Kapoor, Cassandra G. Extavour

Annelid eye evolution revealed by developmental, ultrastructural, and connectome analyses of cerebral eyes in Malacoceros fuliginosus
Suman Kumar, Anna Seybold, Oleg Tolstenkov, Sharat Chandra Tumu, Harald Hausen

Tracking morphological development in stony corals
Garrett J. Fundakowski, Viviana Brambilla, Kyle J. A. Zawada, Cher F Y Chow, Emily Croasdale, Amelia J. F. Errington, Luisa Fontoura, Wilhelm J Marais, Rachael M. Woods, Pim Edelaar, Kevin Lala, Joshua S. Madin, Maria Dornelas

Cell Biology

Whole-Cell Proteomics Identifies Novel Regulators of Ciliogenesis Beyond the Axoneme
Xiaolu Xu, Yanbao Yu, Tony Zheng, Fiona Clark, Jean Ross, Neha Sindhu, Andre L P Tavares, John B Wallingford, Shuo Wei, Jian Sun

Developmentally programmed nuclear pore complex replacement enables oocyte specification
Shruti Venkat, Tram Nguyen, Cecilia Blangini, Michelle Pollak, Karen Schindler, Maya Capelson, Prashanth Rangan

PKN is a sex- and species-specific fertilization factor in brown algae
Masakazu Hoshino, Meri Nehlsen, Rita A. Batista, Morgane Raphalen, Toshiyuki Wakimoto, Shinya Uwai, Kazuhiro Kogame, Vikram Alva, Susana Coelho

HDAC1/2-mediated repression of Wnt receptor expression orients asymmetric division polarity in C. elegans
Mar Ferrando-Marco, Beatriz Garcia del Valle, Mark Hintze, Lucy Narunsky, Shuxiao Lin, Junyue Huang, Shannon Edwards, Michalis Barkoulas

Forward Programming Identifies Inducers of Blood-Brain Barrier Properties in Human Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Endothelial Cells
Soniya Tamhankar, Yunfeng Ding, Fatemeh Yaghoobi Hashjin, Sarah M. Boutom, Richard Daneman, Sean P. Palecek, Eric V. Shusta

Restoration of Spermatogenesis is Dependent on Activation of a SPRY4-ERK Checkpoint Following Germline Stem Cell Damage
Ying Liu, Tansol Choi, Brad Pearson, Ryan Nachman, Whitney Woo, Na Xu, Ryan Schreiner, Romulo Hurtado, Marco Seandel, Shahin Rafii, Todd Evans

Microtubules sustain the fidelity of cellularization in a coenocytic relative of animals
Margarida Araújo, Marine Olivetta, Paolo Ronchi, Viola Oorschot, Arif Khan, Christian Tischer, Hiral Shah, Gautam Dey, Omaya Dudin

Mechanosensing and IL-13 Signaling Synergistically Modulate Intestinal Stem Cell Differentiation via STAT6 and YAP
Sarbari Saha, Thao Nguyen, Cornelis Mense, Marie Touzet-Robin, Karen Kresbach, Stephan A. Eisler, Ulrich S. Schwarz, Andrew G. Clark

Altered stem cell properties of human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells based on bone region location
Christopher J. Wells, Christine Hall, Samantha M. Holmes, Isabelle J. Grenier-Pleau, John F. Rudan, Steve Mann, Sheela A. Abraham

Modelling

Segmented wavetrains and sites of reversal in the mouse seminiferous tubules
Kei Sugihara, Ayuki Sekisaka, Toshiyuki Ogawa, Takashi Miura

Early development of male germ cell clones shapes their reproductive success
Tatsuro Ikeda, Maurice Langhinrichs, Tamar Nizharadze, Chieko Koike, Yuzuru Kato, Katsushi Yamaguchi, Shuji Shigenobu, Kana Yoshido, Shinnosuke Suzuki, Toshinori Nakagawa, Ayumi Maruyama, Seiya Mizuno, Satoru Takahashi, Nils B. Becker, Hans-Reimer Rodewald, Thomas Höfer, Shosei Yoshida

A mathematical synthesis of genetics, development, and evolution
Mauricio González-Forero

Tools & Resources

Cellular diversity of the developing chick trigeminal ganglion at single-cell resolution
Arvind Arul Nambi Rajan, Erica J. Hutchins

A quantitative in vivo CRISPR-imaging platform identifies regulators of hyperplastic and hypertrophic adipose morphology in zebrafish
Rebecca Wafer, Panna Tandon, James E. N. Minchin

A robust human airway organoid platform enables scalable expansion and trajectory mapping of pulmonary neuroendocrine cells
Noah Candeli, Lisanne den Hartigh, Nicholas Hou, Andrés Marco, José Antonio Sánchez-Villicaña, Andrea García-González, Shashank Gandhi, Francesca Sgualdino, Alyssa J. Miller, Jason Spence, Susana Chuva de Sousa Lopes, José L. McFaline-Figueroa, Hans Clevers, Talya L. Dayton

Nuclear Histone 3 Post-Translational Modification Profiling in Whole Cells using Spectral Flow Cytometry
Carly S. Golden, Saylor Williams, Sandeep Sreerama, Sophia Blankevoort, H. Joseph Yost, Martin Tristani-Firouzi, Anna Belkina, Maria A. Serrano

Epitope-based labeling for improved live-imaging of endogenous proteins in C. elegans
Elise van der Salm, Mette H. Schroeder, Loes B. Steller, Stephanie I. Miller, Amelie Scheper, Gwen Nowee, Erik. E. Griffin, Suzan Ruijtenberg

A facile method for fluorescent visualization of newly synthesized fibrous collagen by capturing allysine aldehyde groups as cross-link precursors
Junpei Kuroda, Kazunori K. Fujii, Sugiko Futaki, Azumi Hirata, Yuki Taga, Takaki Koide

Electrical stimulation combined with p27Kip1 inactivation drives proliferative neurogenic reprogramming of Mueller glia in the adult mouse retina
Megan L. Stone, Joel Jovanovic, Edward M. Levine

Arrayed single-gene perturbations identify drivers of human anterior neural tube closure
Roya E. Huang, Giridhar M. Anand, Heitor C. Megale, Jason Chen, Chudi Abraham-Igwe, Sharad Ramanathan

Conserved cellular architecture and developmental mechanisms of the zebrafish meninges
Ashley L. Arancio, Kathryn Wilhem, Hung-Jhen Chen, Brandon M. Hernandez, Percy J. Raggi, D’Juan T. Farmer

A Single-Cell Temporal Atlas of Mouse Nasal Embryonic Development
Huan Chen, Yingxiu Chen, Mengjie Pan, Ziyu Feng, Baomei Cai, Yiyi Cheng, Sihao Chen, Jiehong Deng, Xia Yao, Chunhua Zhou, Yunjing Du, Wei He, Ruifang Zhang, Yudong Fu, Shujuan Liu, Lihui Lin, Shengyong Yu, Yuehong Yan, Duanqing Pei, Dajiang Qin, Jiekai Chen, Shangtao Cao

Cell Type Architecture and Positional Gene Gradients in an Adult Animal at Subcellular Resolution
Maoqin Sun, Yuxiaofei Wang, Kai Han, Lidong Guo, Yue Chen, Yao Li, Yaru Lin, Xiawei Liu, Zhi Huang, Qun Liu, Wenjie Guo, Rui Zhang, Wandong Zhao, Langchao Liang, Xiaoyu Wei, Li Zhou, Xuebin Mao, Jiaqi Wang, Weijian Wu, Hongwei Pan, Tao Yang, He Zhang, Xiaoshan Su, Shanshan Liu, Wenwei Zhang, Longqi Liu, Søren Tvorup Christensen, Jifeng Fei, Xin Liu, Ying Gu, Jian Wang, Huanming Yang, Gang Pei, Guangyi Fan, Xun Xu, Hanbo Li, Mengyang Xu, An Zeng

Husbandry and Maintenance of Carausius morosus Laboratory Populations
Macy Ingersoll, Petra Kovacikova, Yousuf Hashmi, Cassandra G. Extavour

A molecular and spatial resource defining tubulin isotype organization during corneal development
R Ramarapu, WR Stoehr, M Miesen, S. Border, SM Thomasy, CD Rogers

Efficient derivation and transcriptional characterization of mouse extra-embryonic endoderm stem cell lines generated by somatic cell nuclear transfer
Shuaipeng Li, Shu Wei, Guomeng Li, Mei Hu, Jiangwei Lin, Wandong Bao

Integrative Inference of Spatially Resolved Cell Lineage Trees using LineageMap
Xinhai Pan, Yiru Chen, Xiuwei Zhang

Observing concurrent subcellular dynamics in large living tissues
Charles S Wright, Sanjeev Uthishtran, Laura Z Kreplin, Hetvi R Gandhi, Abhishek Patil, Harrison M York, Samyukta Sita, Samuel A Manning, Elliot Brooks, Guizhi Sun, In-won Lee, Wing Hei Chan, Sara Hlavca, Samuel Crossman, Helen E Abud, Jan Kaslin, Avnika A Ruparelia, Peter D Currie, Kieran F Harvey, Jose M Polo, John Carroll, Senthil Arumugam

High resolution spatial transcriptomic and proteomic profiling of early primate gastrulation in utero
Nikola Sekulovski, Maliha Kabir, Anusha Rengarajan, Amber E. Carleton, Jenna K. Schmidt, Chien-Wei Lin, Kenichiro Taniguchi

Single-cell-scale spatial transcriptome reveals early regional priming of the developing mouse ovary
Anthony S. Martinez, Tyler J. Gibson, Courtney Diamond, Jennifer Jaime, Jennifer McKey

Efficient multi-lineage cardiovascular differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells in animal serum-free conditions
Nguyen T N Vo, Kelvin Chung, Aishah Nasir, Davor Pavlovic, Chris Denning

Adapting the OpenFlexure Microscope for Affordable Live-Cell Imaging
Jodie R Malcolm, Olympia Physouni, Stuart Lacy, Mark Bentley, Stephen P Howarth, Sandy MacDonald, Alastair P Droop, Benedict Powell, Laura Wiggins, William J Brackenbury, Peter J O’Toole

Direct, high-throughput linking of single-cell imaging and gene expression
Catherine K Xu, Georg Meisl, Nikita Moshkov, Niklas A Schmacke, Karolis Goda, Alexey Shkarin, Maximilian F Schlögel, Tuomas PJ Knowles, Fabian J Theis, Linas Mazutis, Jochen Guck

A live-imaging system for Arabidopsis leaf primordia at early stages
Yujie Zhao, Hokuto Nakayama, Satohiro Okuda, Tetsuya Higashiyama, Hirokazu Tsukaya

NucVerse3D: Generalizable 3D nuclear instance segmentation across heterogeneous microscopy modalities
Jorge Vergara, Cristian Perez-Gallardo, Ricardo Velasco, Dilan Martinez, Diego Badilla, Esteban G. Contreras, Pamela Guevara, Fabián Segovia-Miranda, Hernán Morales-Navarrete

Super-resolution single-cell spatial atlas of plant de novo regeneration
Xiehai Song, Shaoman Zhang, Zhiliang Yue, Yongqi Liu, Shanshan Chen, Yani Niu, Yan Shi, Hengjia Yang, Li Xu, Naixu Liu, Yuanyuan Miao, Man Lv, Jinshan Li, Tong Wang, Meizhi Xu, Binmei Sun, Chuan Qiu, Ruirui Xu, Jizong Wang, Huawei Zhang, Shuguo Hou, Gang Li, Haodong Chen, Xing Wang Deng, Bosheng Li

Long-term ex ovo culture of Caenorhabditis elegans embryos
Clover Ann Stubbert, Cherry Soe, Pavak Kirit Shah

A Data-Driven Image Extraction and Analysis Pipeline for Plant Phenotyping in Controlled Environments
Fahimeh Orvati Nia, Joshua Peeples, Seth C. Murray, Andrew McFarland, Troy Vann, Shima Salehi, Robert Hardin, David D. Baltensperger, Amir Ibrahim, J. Alex Thomasson, Henry Fadamiro, Nithya K Subramanian, Nazar Oladepo, Uday Vysyaraju

Research practice & education

Set-up, validation, evaluation, and cost-benefit analysis of an AI-assisted assessment of responsible research practices in a sample of life science publications
Silke Kniffert, Ben Katthöfer, Robert Emprechtinger, Pasquale Pellegrini, Eva Maria Funk, Ishminder Singh Dhamrait, Yalei Zang, Ailyn Bornmüller, Ulf Toelch

Science should be machine-readable
A. Sina Booeshaghi, Laura Luebbert, Lior Pachter

bioRxiv: the preprint server for biology
Richard Sever, Samantha Hindle, Ted Roeder, Sol Fereres, Olaya Fernández Gayol, Sanchari Ghosh, Martina Proietti Onori, Emma Croushore, Kevin-John Black, Linda Sussman, Janet Argentine, Wayne Manos, Marisol Muñoz, Josh Sinanan, Tracy K. Teal, John R. Inglis

Benefits and Challenges of Integrating a Generative AI Assisted Reading Guide in an Undergraduate Journal Club Assignment
Ashley Ringer McDonald, Anne V. Vázquez

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In this SciArt profile, we meet Brittany Carr, an Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences. In her artwork, Brittany uses acrylic, watercolour, gouache, and ink to create pictures of the natural world, while she is also a fan of using microscopy for ‘science’ art.

Can you tell us about your background and what you work on now?

During my PhD research, I was interested in pharmacological control of myopia, and investigating off-target drug effects of muscarinic antagonists in the chicken eye. I then switched to inherited retinal degeneration for my postdoctoral studies, where I learned to use frogs as a model organism. I studied the effects of loss of two genes: PROM1 and CDHR1 on photoreceptor outer segment morphogenesis and retinal degeneration. I started my independent research career in 2022. I am still interested in PROM1 and in using frogs to develop other models of inherited and age-related blindness. We have a few interesting projects in the lab that a new for me including looking at microglia and retinal inflammation, and retinal development.

Were you always going to be a scientist?

I was always interested in science as a kid and read every science book that I could get my hands on. I was the first person in my family to go to university, however, so I didn’t know how it was possible for me to actually become a ‘real’ scientist. I joined a pre-med undergraduate program with the intention to go to Optometry school. I was fortunate enough as a 3^rd year undergraduate student to meet an incredible mentor, who invited me to join his lab and gave me free reign to do science. The first time I prepared an immunofluorescence slide of chicken retinal amacrine cells and looked at it under the microscope, I was absolutely hooked. From then on, I knew academia was the only place I wanted to be and I was lucky enough to have landed myself in a lab where there was a mentor who knew exactly how to help me make it happen.

And what about art – have you always enjoyed it?

Yes, I have always enjoyed art and drawing. I spent a lot of time in elementary, middle- and high-school drawing instead of taking notes or doing homework during my classes. There was a time where I was at a crossroads and had to make the decision to choose between art school and science. I chose (at the time) to pursue optometry. Then, later on, when I discovered microscopy I got to learn a technique where I could express myself artistically again in a scientific career. I am a self-taught artist, but I recently moved a few blocks away from an Atelier, where I can now take art classes. It’s been a lot of fun getting to spend time just painting and growing my art skills.

What or who are your most important artistic influences?

I have always been attracted to the ‘creepy’ or ‘weird’ artists, or loose, bright, and impressionistic landscape artists. People like H.R. Giger, Hieronymus Bosch, Francisco Goya, Francis Bacon. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Hester Berry, Julia Veenstra, and a whole bunch of local artists, including Di, Erinn Evans, Oksana Zhelisko, Jared Robinson, and Justina Smith.

How do you make your art?

I dabble in a bunch of mediums, but primarily acrylic, watercolor, gouache, and ink. Practically speaking, I make most of my art in classes now, because running a lab and doing research is a lot of work, and nothing forces you to make art like paying money for a 4-6 hr block of time to do nothing else but make art. When the weather is nice, I like to take my sketchbook and work plein air. I am fortunate to live somewhere surrounded by nature, so I like to take advantage of that.

Does your science influence your art at all, or vice versa, or are they separate worlds?

I think that I like the same themes between my science and my art (nature, bright colours, high contrast), but they have two different goals. For science, you can make aesthetic things, but the goal is always to convey knowledge. Because of this, I approach my ‘science’ art differently than I do my traditional art, which for me, is just to make things that make me happy. I definitely take micrographs for aesthetic reasons, and most of these end up on social media and my webpage, not so often in actual papers or diagrams. The subjects that I draw in traditional art are not overtly science-themed, and instead are more focussed on landscapes and ‘macro’ nature, such as birds and animals, or silly things that I do just for the joy of it with no need to convey a message.

What are you thinking of working on next?

I’m the type of person that doesn’t paint until inspiration hits me, and then I can’t not paint until the idea in my head is realized. I live in a fairly quirky city now, and so I do want to do some small paintings of “Just Edmonton Things” that I have seen or experienced since moving here that I found funny or interesting.

How/ where can people find more about you?

I am most active on bluesky @drbjcarr.bsky.social, where I post mostly about science, but share my art and photography too.

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Recently, I attended the biennial meeting of the German Society for Developmental Biology (GfE). This was my second time attending one of these meetings, and I was looking forward to it, having missed the last one a couple of years ago. Everyone from my scientific circle, here in Germany, thinks of these meetings as having a homely feeling with a close-knit familial atmosphere, and this meeting was no different. The meeting this time was even more special with members of the Dutch (DSDB) and Spanish (SEBD) societies joining in as well.

The meeting took place in Potsdam over the course of 4 days, on a university campus: a welcome trend in the GfE meetings, where the meetings are typically organised in an academic backdrop, instead of a commercial conference center. I believe this is a great strategy to keep registration fees low, making the meeting widely accessible to the community. With plenty of coffee and food to go around, the meeting struck a nice balance between great science and the time to digest it all.

These meetings are always a great opportunity to reconnect with your local scientific network. Having attended one of the previous iterations, I was looking forward to seeing some of my old colleagues. I am sure many others were also able to interact with colleagues from Spain and the Netherlands, creating new connections. With about 150 participants, the meeting was just the right size to not be overwhelming, with the international crowd finding ample opportunities to intermingle. The relatively small size naturally obviates the need for having parallel sessions, thus not forcing one to make the difficult choice of missing out on interesting talks. Despite its small size, the meeting had a significant presence on social media, with #GfE2026 trending on the feeds.

Covering topics from the basics of embryonic development to disease modeling, the conference showcased the latest and greatest in classical model systems, as well as emerging ones. As usual, the presence of in vitro embryo models was noteworthy, with a concerted drive towards increasing throughput and reproducibility in these systems. Surprisingly, -omics techniques (especially, single-cell RNA-Seq) were a bit underrepresented, giving the impression that perhaps the community has now gotten over the novelty-driven early excitement. Instead, there was an exciting abundance of talks and posters focusing on the role of mechanical regulation in biological systems (cell-, tissue- mechanics, mechanical manipulations and characterizations, etc.) at all stages of development.

Speaking of posters: while the quality of the posters was excellent, the duration of the poster sessions left something to be desired. Given how well organised this meeting was, commenting about shorter poster sessions feels nitpicky. However, there seems to be a broader emerging trend in conferences that needs to be addressed: more often than not, the space for poster sessions is limited, preventing the presenters from displaying the posters throughout the meeting. It is disheartening to have one’s poster propped up for a couple of days at best, not getting the attention that it deserves, after having spent hours preparing it. We, as a community, need to make a change and Make Poster-sessions Great Again: poster sessions should not feel like an afterthought. Participants should be allowed to display and celebrate their work throughout the meeting, with even- vs. odd-numbered posters being presented in different poster sessions. In any case, I particularly appreciated the novelty of many of the findings presented in talks and posters, with many unpublished results, whether completely new or freshly available as preprints.

One of the highlights of the conference was the PhD Award Lecture by Tatiana Lebedeva and the Hilde Mangold Award Lecture by Maik Bischoff. Tatiana walked us through her experiments with Nematostella vectensis embryos, where she focused on germ layer specification and gastrulation. It was great to see her grit and optimism despite the painstakingly difficult journey of trying to create transgenic animals to visualize β-catenin expression in embryos of this species. Maik talked about his work on the emergence of chirality in biological systems through tissue interactions. Although working with Drosophila melanogaster – a conventional model organism – he demonstrated how the field needs to use these experimental systems to ask increasingly challenging questions. Listening to these and other talks, I couldn’t help but wonder about the future of model organisms in developmental biology research. While research on non-model species is a necessary challenge and a welcome change for the field, work by Maik and others at the conference showed that model organisms such as Drosophila melanogaster still have their relevance. We are certainly in an age in which what was once frontier research in model organisms is now a territory being increasingly captured by non-model organisms. The only way to keep these conventional models relevant is to ask increasingly challenging questions and push the limits of what was once possible. (See this recent preprint, which talks about diminishing representation of model organisms in scientific literature over the past couple of decades, and what that might mean for the future of basic and applied research in biology.)

Thankfully, the weather was somewhat on our side, with some sunshine allowing us to sit outdoors during lunch times. The conference dinner on the waterfront was exceptional: I don’t remember having had better food at a conference in recent memory, and from what I hear, I missed out on a similarly excellent food during the last meeting. Keeping up with the tradition, the dance party followed, with great music till 1 am, when we were gently “forced” out of the restaurant. I suppose the next meeting (in 2028 at Heidelberg) has a lot to live up to.

Acknowledgments: Thanks to Alex Eve and Verena Kaul for comments. Cover image, courtesy of meeting organisers and Ingrid Lohmann.

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The School will be a 4-day (23-26 June 2026) Theory&Computation course in a splendid Swedish inland Resort (2 hours away from Stockholm – our bus will bring you there at no additional cost from a nearby train station).

The first editions of the school were in 2022 and 2024—both a success (click here or here if you are curious).

REGISTER as soon as possible to secure your spot!

Key info:

– The teachers will be prominent international scientists, but also former participants who are now invited as teachers – you will learn from your peers via hands-on computational sessions. By participating this year, you will also be able to present your candidacy to become a teacher in the next edition!

– The event is designed to favor frequent interactions between PhD students/Postdocs with successful scientists in the field, in multiple meet-the-speaker sessions, and during free outdoor time, as the invited speakers are asked to be around and available throughout the school.

– The school will focus on key relevant topics at the interface between technology, biology, and computation, including how to integrate computationally and conceptually all the analytical modalities such as gene expression in single cell, epigenetics and 3D genome.

– The school will also include a flash course of scientific writing tailored for the field (this is a regular, highly appreciated part of the school).

-The school is sponsored by PALS (a merge of the two prestigious Knut of Alice Wallenberg Foundation & SciLifeLab).

Among many other, you will benefit from hands-on-computational sessions on:

– Single-cell multiome Data Integration & workflow management and reproducibility
– Combination of ATAC-seq and 3D-genomics
– Non-coding variants Prioritization & advanced Transcription Factor motif analysis
– Inferring Gene Regulatory Networks from large-scale epigenomics
– Visium HD Spatial Transcriptomics

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 How do circular RNAs (circRNAs) regulate Kaposi sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHV) and biomechanical signalling that drives Kaposi sarcoma, and can targeting these pathways reveal new therapeutic strategies? This project will determine how circRNAs control viral persistence and mechanotransduction via Hippo pathway, revealing new targetable mechanisms linking infection, RNA regulation, and tumorigenesis.

Exciting PhD project seeking to address fundamental research questions with real translational potential. Interdisciplinary training across cancer biology, virology, RNA biology, and mechanobiology through the complementary expertise of the Hansen and Tagawa laboratories will be provided in a supportive research environment with excellent advanced equipment and technologies available. Clinical guidance will be provided by Dr Oswald. PPI activities will be integrated throughout. You will be part of the future Medicine PhD program.

Open for home fee (UK) candidates only. Deadline May 12th, please reach out if you have any questions.

https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/circular-rnas-linking-viral-infection-and-mechanotransduction-in-kaposi-sarcoma/?p195577

(1 votes)
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Greetings to the Node community, 

My name is Andrea Murillo, and I am delighted to share that I am the new Community Manager for the Node. I started my research journey as a physiologist and later found my way into endocrinology during my PhD, where I worked with my favourite worm and developmental model species, Capitella teleta. Throughout my PhD, I investigated components of the estrogen signalling pathway across life stages of C. teleta. That is how the wonder of developmental biology first wormed its way into my heart.  

After finishing my PhD, I started working for The Company of Biologists as the Science Communications Officer. In that role, my passion for science communication grew, and my appreciation for biology deepened as I wrote about the Company’s fantastic journal content across many fields. But it was the science and the community surrounding the Node and Development that truly hooked me (I will stop with the worm puns now!). 

As Community Manager, I am excited to build on the great work done by Eva, Cat, Aidan, Helen and Joyce and to continue some of our users’ favourite series and features. In my previous role, I worked closely with both my predecessor, Joyce, and the two Community Managers from our sister sites: Reinier from preLights and Helen from FocalPlane. I am thrilled to be a part of the team as the Node Community Manager, a transition which they have generously supported. I’m planning to bring some of my own fresh ideas to the Node, and I hope you will like them.  

My first chance to meet some of you in person will be at the British Society for Developmental Biology 2026 Spring Meeting next week. If you are attending, please stop by and say hello. I am really excited to learn about your research and, most of all, to meet the people who make great developmental biology and stem cell research happen.  

Wormest regards, 

Andrea 

(10 votes)
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[Editorial from Development’s latest issue.]

Preprints have become an indispensable part of our research ecosystem. Over the last 10 years, the biological community has witnessed an exponential growth in both submissions and readership of preprints. Arguably, the main drivers behind this growth are the ability of preprints to speed up the dissemination of research and broaden access to results long before formal publication.

Development and our not-for-profit publisher, The Company of Biologists, have a long history of actively supporting preprints (Prosée and Brown, 2025). In 2018, the Company launched preLights, a community-run platform that highlights noteworthy preprints across the biological sciences. Over time, preLights has evolved to provide support and training for early-career researchers to develop their writing skills for summarising and critiquing new work. In addition, Development’s own community site, the Node, posts monthly preprint lists from developmental biology and related fields. These lists are among the most-read posts on the Node, demonstrating the value of preprints within our community. Over time, preLights, the Node and Development have started working together more closely to highlight noteworthy preprints; a recent collaboration between preLights and the Node saw the introduction of curated preprint highlights in the form of ‘preLighters’ choice’ posts and a selection of preLights posts from the stem cell and developmental biology community feature in the journal as quarterly ‘Preprint Highlights’.

As part of this preprint ecosystem, Development launched its ‘In preprints’ series in early 2022 to bring curated, contextualised coverage of preprinted findings directly to our readership (Briscoe and Grewal, 2022). These articles are intended to complement other initiatives, such as preLights, in guiding readers to the preprints that matter the most in the field. We know that Development’s ‘In preprints’ articles receive, on average, over a thousand views within the first 12 months of publication and continue to be read in the years that follow. Development has now published around 60 ‘In preprints’ articles on topics ranging from single-cell lineage tracing techniques (Rodriguez-Fraticelli and Morris, 2022) to human stem cell-based embryo models (Moris and Sturmey, 2023) and Polycomb complexes (Iwasaki et al., 2023) to leaf-shape transitions (Byrne, 2024). You can browse all the ‘In preprints’ articles published to date in our dedicated subject collection.

Preprints featured in these articles have mainly been selected by Development’s in-house Reviews Editors. We are now expanding this initiative by appointing a small group of Preprint Editors – active researchers with their finger on the pulse of preprint literature – to commission and write ‘In preprints’ articles. This is an exciting opportunity to co-curate the preprint literature directly with members of the Development community, bringing specialist expertise and diverse perspectives to bear on an ever-growing body of work. We intend to appoint Preprint Editors who represent specialist topics within the broader scope of Development, and we hope that, as expert academics, they will be able to identify and highlight the best preprints from their fields as part of their routine exploration of the research literature.

We are currently accepting applications for Preprint Editors, and our call will close on Monday 30 March 2026. Applicants with at least 3 years of postdoctoral experience or principal investigators from any career stage are welcome to apply. In exchange for their contributions to the project, Preprint Editors will receive formal recognition and financial remuneration, including the option to receive support to attend relevant conferences. To find out more about this initiative, please visit our webpage: https://journals.biologists.com/dev/pages/preprint-editors.

We look forward to working with our first Preprint Editors following their appointment later this year to further strengthen our coverage of important preprinted work. We also anticipate that this programme will continue to evolve in response to community needs. This next step marks our commitment to supporting the reach of preprinted work and bringing curated, quality research to the attention of our community.

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Biology Open is proud to partner with the European Zebrafish Society (EZS) to offer travel grants for the 13th European Zebrafish Meeting (EZM2026) to be held 7-11 July 2026 in Vienna, Austria. This travel grant is designed to provide financial support for early-career researchers based in the Global South.

The aim is to strengthen links for future collaboration and enhance the researcher’s career opportunities, which is in line with The Company of Biologists’ core value of supporting biologists.

More information and an application form can be found on the EZS website.

Deadline to apply: 15 March 2026

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In February, we hear from three early-career researchers studying neural development. Chaired by one of Development’s first Pathway to Independence fellows, Polina Kameneva, Principal Investigator at St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute (CCRI) in Vienna, Austria. Polina’s group uses 2D and 3D human stem cell models to recapitulate adrenal gland cell development to understand the onset of neuroblastoma.

Wednesday 25 February – 15:00 GMT/UTC

At the speakers’ discretion, the webinar will be recorded to view on demand. To see the other webinars scheduled in our series, and to catch up on previous talks, please visit: thenode.biologists.com/devpres

(4 votes)
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As scientists, we are all are works in progress and continually developing in our own ways. Each of us brings unique strengths and skills along with challenges, and these can change during the course of our careers. Still, there are some common themes to what makes for an effective scientist, and these can provide useful benchmarks for evaluating our progress and planning the path ahead. This article on helpimascientist.com defines several stages of scientific development, with the intention to promote honest self reflection, open conversations, and aid in helping to set goals.

https://helpimascientist.com/2022/11/20/stages-of-scientific-development/ (4 votes)
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