These images show live embryos of animals (jellyfish, crustacean, worm, sea urchin, sea squirt, beetle) and one of animals closest single-celled relatives. They were captured taking advantage of fluorescent proteins localised on the outer membrane of cells, allowing us to observe cell outlines. 1/9

Mapping nerves in a whole embryos.

We find that across species and development stages, embryonic nerves display (beautiful) fractal geometry.

More here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Macrophages self-generate and refine chemotactic gradients during migration towards complement C5a Macrophages don’t just follow chemoattractants to locate sites of infection, they can also create and sculpt them as guidance cues but the mechanisms remain unclear. This study shows that macrophages ...

New paper! Self-generated gradients in macrophage chemotaxis. Just published, by the esteemed Abhi Kiran and many collaborators.
A short skytorial follows.

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Earthset from Artemis II. I am overcome.

Mosaic gastruloids reveal a temporal restriction for developmental cell competition - Nature Cell Biology Frenster et al. utilize mosaic mouse gastruloids as a model of cell fitness and competition, identifying a temporal window between primed pluripotency and early gastrulation during which cell competit...

🥳 I am happy to share our latest manuscript published in @natcellbio.nature.com We use #Gastruloids to study #CellCompetition during early mammalian development and find not only that this is highly pronounced in our system but also tightly restricted in time. (1/12) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@lsprahl.bsky.social and Ronald Canlla in the lab just published a detailed study on remote-controlled epithelial budding morphogenesis. We can direct budding, tubule elongation, and perhaps branching in human kidney organoids via a light-activated RET receptor.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New preprint from the lab!

How do tissue shapes influence cell fate decisions?

By manipulating brain organoid geometry, we show that lumen rounding directs apical progenitor division mode and promotes the emergence of basal progenitors.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

1/

Stress-relaxing granular bioprinting materials enable complex and uniform organoid self-organization - Nature Materials A tunable granular biomaterial matrix is developed to support long-term bioprinting. Stress relaxation at high strains and long timescales is shown to be important for tissue self-organization in inte...

organs develop in a dynamic environment where their boundaries are constantly changing shape, relaxing, compressing, etc. in synchrony with the embryo.

see how this inspired us to create a material for optimal organoid bioprinting & self-organization!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to highlight a new preprint about mechanical contributions to tissue homeostasis, from the Manning group in collaboration with the amazing Carien Niessen and Sara Wickstrom @sarawickstrom.bsky.social labs, spearheaded by Dr. Somiealo Azote: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

If you are considering where to publish new research on extracellular/non-autonomous/geometric/physical cause and effect in development, consider our @dev-journal.bsky.social special issue, with @rashmi-priya.bsky.social!

Special Issue The Extracellular Environment in Development, Regeneration and Stem Cells Guest Editors Alex Hughes (University of Pennsylvania) Rashmi Priya (The Francis Crick Institute) Submission deadline: 1 March 2026. Development call for papers. Image of magenta and teal cells in a jawbone.

Submit your latest research to our upcoming special issue – The Extracellular Environment in Development, Regeneration and Stem Cells

Guest Editors: Alex Hughes (@hugheslabpenn.bsky.social) & Rashmi Priya (@rashmi-priya.bsky.social)

Deadline: 1 March 2026

journals.biologists.com/dev/pages/ex...

Developmentally inspired synthetic kidney engineering - Nature Biotechnology Hughes and colleagues present a developmentally inspired tissue engineering strategy to overcome barriers in kidney tissue generation, enhancing prospects for renal replacement therapies.

Developmentally inspired synthetic kidney engineering - @hugheslabpenn.bsky.social @pennengineering.bsky.social go.nature.com/46tacJq

Developmentally inspired synthetic kidney engineering Nature Biotechnology - Hughes and colleagues present a developmentally inspired tissue engineering strategy to overcome barriers in kidney tissue generation, enhancing prospects for renal...

Check out our new @natbiotech.nature.com review on how to build kidneys & other epithelial organs using principles from embryonic development. Led by Emma Warrner and @azyhuang.bsky.social.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

rdcu.be/e3fy0

Our new paper just out!
pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

How do cells orchestrate themselves to achieve a directional movement as a group?

Hi, I’m @sayukihirano.bsky.social. In this thread, I’ll highlight key mechanisms of how cells communicate with each other to perform directional collective migration.

🚨 PhD Position Available 🚨
I’m recruiting a PhD student to join my lab at the Multiscale Imaging Centre (MIC), Münster, Germany.

www.bischofflab.com/jobs

Fully funded ✅
#Cellbio #Morphogenesis #Microscopy
#Drosophila #PhD
(Details Below)

Original Posting:
stellen.uni-muenster.de/jobposting/d...

Defending PhD student, looking over their thesis: “If I knew then what I know now, I could’ve done all of this in like 9 months.”

A thread about my favorite pioneering cave explorers and why I don’t think AI will ever “solve” biology.

Engineering the development of the pancreas Researchers found that the shape of the fluid-filled cavities in the developing pancreas is controlled by pressure and the rate cells divide.

With Byung Ho Lee and Kana Fuji as first/lead authors, @anne-grapin.bsky.social group, @utokyoofficial.bsky.social, Inst. of Physics of Academia Sinica, & @igbmc.bsky.social found the shape of lumens in the developing pancreas is controlled by pressure & proliferation. www.mpi-cbg.de/news-outreac...

🎉 Happy New Year! We’re kicking off 2026 with an exciting VGZT seminar!

🗓️ Thursday, January 8th
⏰ 9:30 PST / 12:30 EST / 17:30 UTC / 17:30 GMT / 18:30 CET

Our speakers are
👉 Jan Jakub Zylicz (@jzylicz.bsky.social)
👉 Anahi Binagui-Casas (@abinagui.bsky.social)

See you there 👋

Just quit Quitting projects in science is hard, but we should be doing a lot more of it.

Blog post: Just quit
Quitting projects in science is hard, but we should be doing a lot more of it.

open.substack.com/pub/arjunraj...

🚨Preprint 2/2: Several studies implicate condensates in RTK fusion onco-signaling. So we were surprised to find that condensates are entirely dispensable😮(!). A study from proteins to mice, by dynamic duo @davidgonzmar.bsky.social and @trmumford.bsky.social.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

👇

🚨New preprint(1/2)! We show that RTK fusion oncoproteins broadly suppress EGFR signaling. How? Sequestration of adapters as the shared principle.

Led by superb PhD student Carol Gao.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Implications for drug tolerance/resistance, and includes one big surprise🫧.👇

We wrote two reviews on cell migration, published today in Nature Methods.

They provides practical guidelines how to select a cell-migration assay and how to analyze cell-migration data

Review 1: nature.com/articles/s41...

Review 2: nature.com/articles/s41...

Vote for your favourite 'Featured image' from 2025 - FocalPlane Vote for your favourite 'Featured image' from 2025 - News

We’ve highlighted some wonderful images and researchers in our ‘Featured image’ series in 2025. To celebrate, we’re inviting you to vote for your favourite in our image competition!
#FluorescenceFriday
Check them out here: focalplane.biologists.com/2025/12/19/v...

Leybova, L., Biswas, A., Sharan, R., Trejo, B. M., Kim, K., ..., Phillips, B. K., & Devenport, D. (2024). Radially patterned morphogenesis of murine hair follicle placodes ensures robust epithelial budding. Developmental cell, 59(24), 3272–3289.e5. #EpithelialMechanics
buff.ly/z1wX1O6

Apply for Development's Pathway to Independence programme - the Node Development are currently welcoming applications for our Pathway to Independence (PI) programme, which aims to support a small number of researchers in

Apply for Development's Pathway to Independence programme

The programme aims to support a small number of researchers in the fields of developmental biology, stem cells and regeneration as they transition from postdoc to group leader. Read more ⬇️

thenode.biologists.com/apply-for-de...

My lab is hiring a postdoc (ERC funded)! If you're interested, get in touch!

❗PREPRINT ALERT❗
doi.org/10.64898/202...
The lab of M. Lisa Manning at @syracuseu.bsky.social in collaboration with Ale Mongera at @ucl-cdb.bsky.social show that in the avian presomitic mesoderm, Contact Inhibition of Locomotion has a tissue-wide effect, making tissue act like a fluid under tension.

🎄 Final VGZT seminar before Christmas! 🎄
We’re excited to welcome keynote speaker Olivier Pourquié ✨

“Recapitulating human somitogenesis in vitro”

🗓️ Thursday, December 18th
⏰ 9:30 PST / 12:30 EST / 17:30 UTC / 17:30 GMT / 18:30 CET

📢 New extended abstract submission deadline: 6 January 2026! Outstanding speaker list, plus many slots for short talks by students, postdocs, and junior PIs. Join us in March in Barcelona! events.ibecbarcelona.eu/embl-ibec-co...