🚨 Why can’t mammals regenerate limbs like frog tadpoles or salamanders?
In our new paper in @science.org , we show that species-specific oxygen sensing acts as a gatekeeper for initiating limb regeneration 🐭🐸
🔗 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #EvoDevo

Frenster Lab | Cell Competition Dynamics We study Cell Competition during Embryonic Development using 3D Gastruloids at the University of Freiburg. We view cells as interactive societies in development and cancer. Research, stem cells, Gastr...

The Frenster Lab is here! 🍾 I am so excited to start my #EmmyNoether funded group at @uni-freiburg.de this summer. Our group studies #CellCompetition dynamics during embryonic development using #gastruloids from multiple species. Thanks to the @dfg.de for creating this opportunity! FrensterLab.com

That's it: #GfE2026 #GfESEBDDSDB2026 is over. Thanks for the science, talks, posters, chairing, discussions, helpers in back & front. See you latest at #GfE2028 for more #DevBio & oidsks for all the fish, plants, mice, worm, flies, frogs, squids, brown algae, human, -oids, whatnots and you.

Honored and very grateful to receive the GfE PhD Award 2026! Many thanks to GfE for the recognition of our work! This would not have been possible without the guidance of my supervisor @genikhovich.bsky.social and the many amazing collaborators and colleagues who contributed along the way ❤️.#GfE2026

The GfE PhD Award 2026 goes to Tatiana Lebedeva (@tclebedeva.bsky.social) for her outstanding contribution to developmental biology. She presents the topic of her thesis on the "Role of β-Catenin signaling in germ layer specification in Cnidaria". #GfE2026

#gfe2026 @gfeev.bsky.social PhD Award goes to Tatiana Lebedeva 🎉 for Tatiana's thesis investigating the role of β-catenin in specifying germ layers in one of my favourite organisms, the starlet sea anemone, Nematostella.

ISRO’s iterative learning approach and modular reuse strategies reduce mission costs and risks.

Opinion piece: Can space be democratized? India’s frugal #space innovation offers key lessons for #EmergingNations. In PNAS Front Matter: https://ow.ly/QN1N50Yn1ps

#ISRO #India #Chandrayaan3 #SpaceProgram #NASA #MAVENOrbiter

New preprint from Ruohan Zhong on the architecture of the Nematostella nervous system, check it out!

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

A widely used RNA assay labels the wrong molecules in several model organisms After a routine experiment raised suspicions, Steinmetz group researchers joined forces with collaborators to highlight the limitations of a commonly used RNA labeling product.

New paper out in @bmc.springernature.com 🤩👏 A routine 5-ethynyl uridine (EU) RNA labeling experiment in a sea anemone turned into detective work for @malinkjosavik.bsky.social, @ktgarschall.bsky.social & @prhsteinmetz.bsky.social 🕵️‍♀️

Decoding ‘Wntch’: the intertwined Wnt and Notch pathways in development and disease Abstract. Multicellularity emerges from the ability of cells to undergo functional differentiation. One of the key mechanisms that enables this coordinatio

New Paper Alert!

1982: WNT discovered
1990s: NOTCH enters the stage
2000s: “Let’s study pathways separately.”
2025: “Actually, they talk to each other.”

Welcome to the era of WNT-NOTCH crosstalk

Great collaboration with Mašek lab (CZ) and G. Collu (US)

royalsocietypublishing.org/rsob/article...

Would love to be added too :)

Thrilled to share the preprint from my PhD! 🥳 Where I characterised epithelial cell extrusion in a sea anemone
🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Big thanks to my supervisor @prhsteinmetz.bsky.social and coauthors @noahbruderer.bsky.social @lionlchristiaen.bsky.social at🇳🇴 @msarscentre.bsky.social ⬇️🧵

An updated and spatially validated somatic single-cell atlas of Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus - BMC Genomics Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) has revolutionized transcriptomic research, enabling the creation of detailed tissue, organ, and species-level atlases for model organisms. In Hydractinia, a cni...

A new Hydractinia single-cell atlas from the Schnitzler lab: >47K cells from feeding polyps and stolon tissue that refines major somatic cell lineages and recovers a novel population of putative immune cells – a valuable resource for the cnidarian research community and beyond! tinyurl.com/hsymSC

Congrats to Nadja and the @tessmarraiblelabs.bsky.social. Check out their cool new work (featuring a small sketch I made)!

Freshly out at @natcomms.nature.com ! Our @univie.ac.at @awi.de @viennabiocenter.bsky.social @ercgrantees.bsky.social research into neurogenic plasticity of adult worm brains, and similarities in stem cells supporting growth of camera-type eyes. www.nature.com/articles/s41... [1/7]

This is so cool :)

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT📣: I haven’t been this excited to be part of something new in 15 years… Thrilled to reveal the passion project I’ve been working on for the past year and a half!🙀🥳 (thread 👇)

🚨 My lab is hiring at all levels!

Interested in animal origins & evolutionary cell biology?

I'm recruiting a postdoc, PhD students & a research assistant to study the molecular evolution of cell adhesion using marine invertebrates + comparative genomics.

🔗: clarkelab.com/join/

Please repost!

See this? This = implanting mouse embryo. Usually this happens inside its mother and is invisible to us, but we can actually watch implantation ex vivo with the hope of understanding why implantation goes awry in embryos of older women. A 🧵...

Happy to share the Biodiversity Cell Atlas white paper, out today in @nature.com. We look at the possibilities, challenges, and potential impacts of molecularly mapping cells across the tree of life.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Just came back from a great meeting in Tutzing on the biology of basal Metazoa. Excellent talks, fantastic posters and very kind and vital community. Thanks also to our keynote speaker, Cassandra Extavour. She was the highlight of the meeting. Thanks everyone for contributing.

We are excited to announce the first Western VGZT of Season 7! 🎉

🗓️ Thursday, October 2nd
⏰ 9:30 PDT / 12:30 EDT / 16:30 UTC / 17:30 BST / 18:30 CET

Our speakers:

👉 Antonia Weberling (@a-weberling.bsky.social)

👉 Sanjay Narayanaswamy (@sanjay-n.bsky.social)

Happy to be presenting our story on Nematostella self-organization :) tune in if you like to hear what organizes the organizer in cnidarian gastruloids!

www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

Thanks Grisha! :)

Phenotype rescue upon Zic4 and Gata3 double knockdown. (A,B) Maximum projection confocal images of oral (A) and aboral (B) ends of animals after GFP RNAi (control), Zic4 or Gata3 RNAi, and Zic4+Gata3 RNAi. DNA in cyan, peroxidase activity in magenta and Nematocilin in orange. Panels on the right show magnifications of boxed areas on the left. Scale bars: 100μm. Note the ectopic peroxidase staining in tentacle tips upon Zic4 RNAi, and ectopic Nematocilin staining adjacent to the foot upon Gata3 RNAi, as well as rescue of both phenotypes in the double knockdown. (C) Percentage of animals with ectopic peroxidase staining in tentacles upon Zic4 KD and double KD. (D) Percentage of animals with ectopic Nematocilin staining adjacent to the foot in Gata3 KD and double KD. For examples of strong and partial phenotypes refer to Fig. S6. Data in G and H shown for n animals pooled from at least two independent replicates. ***P<0.001 (Fisher's exact test). (E,F) Schematic of proposed model for controlling the choice between basal disk and battery cell fate in Hydra. At the oral pole, Wnt signaling (black dot) activates Zic4 (orange) expression and thus basal disk identity. Without it, Gata3 dominates at the opposite end, leading to basal disk fate establishment (E). Experimentally depleting one of the factors results in ectopic cell fate acquisition at the opposite body end (F).

Hydra body axis balance: a fight between two transcription factors

This Research Highlight showcases the work from Jaroslav Ferenc, Marylène Bonvin, Panagiotis Papasaikas, Jacqueline Ferralli, Clara Nuninger and Charisios D. Tsiairis:

journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

We knew that cnidarians have stunning regenerative capacities. But the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the self-organization of gastruloids of Nematostella surprised us. A story of cell sorting and Notch signaling. Please check out the work of Sanjay's PhD work: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

🚨 Happy to share my PhD work! We set out to find what organizes the organizer in Nematostella gastruloids. While we knew Wnt1/3+ cells confer axial polarity, we identify the role of Notch signaling as partner in crime in polarising these organizers. How does it do it? www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

Finally, the excellent postdoc work of Emmanuel Haillot is out, where he dissected the integration of Wnt, MAPK and Notch signaling in defining mesoderm and endoderm identities in the diploblast Nematostella. Strikingly similar to sea urchins. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Great opportunity! The Uni Vienna has launched a call (APART) for 4-funding for outstanding postdocs from a US institution. The host lab has to nominate by 1 August a candidate for further selection. Anyone interested in our work please contact me by email with CV/motivation letter. Hurry up!

Congrats Leo! Exciting times ahead :)