Super interesting!

As a recipient of federal grants from #NIH (for now! 😭) that funds research in my lab, I'd like to sincerely thank American taxpayers on #TaxDay for investing in scientific research that lays the foundation for medical and technological innovation in this country and keeps us ALL safe and healthy

Congrats Needhi and the whole team! It is so interesting that there is tissue specificity to the spindle check point! Does it get worse with progressive divisions?

Let's see how many of my followers @realfollowers.bsky.social counts.

That is very cool! Do you think that these conserved TXN factors are like a key chain with different domains activating transcription of different genes, or more like a combination lock, with all domains needing to bind regulatory regions within a gene at the same time to promote its transcription?

Congrats Surojit! 19 DNA binding domains in a single protein, that is so interesting!! What is going on? Why so many? Are they all conserved, functional?

Congrats Berenice and the whole team! ✨🎉🐟

New preprint!
"A stereotyped glial attachment determines the morphology and function of neuronal cilia"
doi.org/10.64898/202...

We find that C. elegans neuronal cilia attach to glia, we identify a protein required for cilia-glia attachment, and we show that glial attachments alter cilia signaling.

CBIOMES team - Buck Samuel, Monica Driscoll, Shilpa Akella, Atiyya Soroyia, Siva Vanapalli, Ciara Hosea and Bushra Rhaman. Not pictured: Dana Blackburn. Collaboration between Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Tech and Rutgers University.

#Artemis is circling the Moon right now. And later this week, our team's experiment launches to the #ISS. Tiny worms. Defined gut microbiomes. Here's why the two are connected. 🧵
#WormsinSpace #CBIOMES #Celegans 🧪 🪱 🧬 🚀

1/n

Linked in post from Sarah Bray The Company of Biologists (known for its 5 journals, Development, Journal of Cell Science, Journal of Experimental Biology, Disease Models and Mechanisms, Biology Open, as well as its charitable activities) is looking to appoint a new CEO. An opportunity to guide the next chapter! More information here:

The Company of Biologists @biologists.bsky.social has a more than 100 year history of supporting science through its journals, meetings, and fellowships. Help lead it into its second century! pls share
www.inspiredselection.com/jobs/jo00000...

#Celegans

Finally, I admire scientists that, like Judith, dedicate their careers to answering a question, because there’s a profound commitment that comes with having to build on your own work and years of persistence (and setbacks that do not make it to the paper but are an integral part of the process). 4/4

In this paper we use the technique of laser ablation to elucidate interactions between somatic cells and germ cells in C. elegans. Two somatic cells in the gonad are shown to play a crucial role in the control of proliferation of germ cells, in their entry into meiosis, and in the establishment and maintenance of their spatial organization.

And look at this summary of the approach and major findings: we killed these somatic cells with a laser and a found that that a lot of interesting things happened to the germ cells (their positions, divisions, and differentiation changed!).

This was such an elegant approach! 3/

Look at this amazing introductory paragraph! It starts by spelling out the gap in knowledge as three questions.

Finding your question is such an important thing. Answering my question is what got me up in the morning wanting to go to lab. 2/

It is so exciting that Judith Kimble received this recognition by her fellow geneticists!

When I was a new grad student, Judith's papers were a big influence on how I learned to think about what is a scientific problem, and ever since I've tried to follow her paper's aesthetics. 1/

Congratulations to the legendary scientist Judith Kimble!!!

We stand on the shoulders of giants.

#womeninSTEM #celegans

Congrats Piali, Jihye, and the whole team!! There is so much to learn about the function of the pharyngeal nervous system! ✨️🪱

Thinking about a faculty career? Jiae Lee and Frank Huynh share real-world insights on navigating the academic job market—from preparing applications to standing out in interviews. Read their stories: buff.ly/UaUUjmB

Congrats to the whole team! 🎉✨️🪱

The CRISPR one is great too!

Evo-Devo (Despacito Biology Parody) | A Capella Science YouTube video by acapellascience

I had way too much fun introducing Developmental Biology in my Genetics class today with this awesome @acapellascience.bsky.social video set to Despacito. Fortunately, Justin Bieber is still a recognizable cultural reference for undergrads.

Well some of us are. Many top neuro journals straight up desk reject model organism papers nowadays. And if you want to get fast, detailed and precise mechanistic answers - some of these are still the best systems.

“No for-profit company could possibly withstand all the false leads required by that process,” he recalled telling them, “all the weird, random science that never panned out.”

Super grateful for this piece highlighting the threats to this country’s biomedical research infrastructure

His Harvard Lab Was Thriving. Then Came the Cuts.

NYT feature on their website's front page about our local C. elegans colleague Will Mair and NIH funding
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/13/u...

This image shows how the combination of the Biology and Engineering bears results in the a super-powered Synthetic Biology panda.

One of the great things about giving a lecture on Synthetic Biology is that I get to use this meme from @synbio1.bsky.social

Many folks here know Eero (Simoncelli) - how many know about his sister Tania? She contributed to the remarkable effort of stopping this nonsense as an ACLU science advisor. (Now she facilitates the search of cures for rare diseases at CZI). Inspiring!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tania_S...

We talked about it yesterday on our Genomics lecture! <15 employees, not covered; or if they find out accidentally, oh well; also life insurance, good luck with that!

There was an audible gasp in my Genetics and Molecular Biology class today when I told students that until just over a decade ago, in the US, a company could patent the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes and prevent others from giving you information about your own DNA.

C. elegans flavin-containing monooxygenase-4 is essential for osmoregulation in hypotonic stress - PubMed Studies in Caenorhabditis elegans have revealed osmoregulatory systems engaged when worms experience hypertonic conditions, but less is known about measures employed when faced with hypotonic stress. Inactivation of fmo-4, which encodes flavin-containing monooxygenase-4, results in dramatic hypoosmo …

I could also be due to hypotonic stress. I think this is more likely, especially if the worms where floated in water. Here is a good reference to worms exploding in distilled water:

Age-associated vulval integrity is an important marker of nematode healthspan - PubMed Improving healthspan, defined as the period where organisms live without frailty and/or disease, is a major goal of biomedical research. While healthspan measures in people are relatively easy to identify, developing robust markers of healthspan in model organisms has proven challenging. Studies usi …

Here is a reference to what could be happening: Age-associated vulval integrity is an important marker of nematode healthspan