Ali Shariati (Ali Shariati), a Stem Cell Reports Early Career Editor, highlights the value of ISSCR membership!

Join us to access year‑round scientific content, member‑only savings on meetings and publishing, and more 👉 https://bit.ly/4eOL2H1

congrats Shaun!

This meeting is going to be awesome! Sign up for great science on an epically beautiful campus nestled among towering redwoods with views of the Pacific Ocean 🌲🌊

Genomics #postdocs: applications are open for our Next Wave of Faculty in Genomics Symposium (due Jan 15)!. Come share your science in Santa Cruz, home of redwoods, ocean views, and the world’s most unbothered mascot:🐌🌲🌊. Link: genomics.ucsc.edu/calendar_eve... @baskinengineering.bsky.social

@alf-castello.bsky.social & I are inviting applications for a competitive PhD studentship to study the mechanisms of translational regulation of the host response to RNA virus infections. The student will be based at Uni. Glasgow. Please spread the word. #RNASky

www.gla.ac.uk/postgraduate...

Together with the Rubin lab @ucsantacruz.bsky.social , we found a surprise: E2F1 drives cells from G0 through the full cell cycle by activating many genes without altering chromatin accessibility! Brilliant work by first author Gerrald Lodewijk, now on the faculty job market,an exceptional scientist

Stem Cell Reports welcomes new researchers to its Editorial Board. Their appointments reinforce the Board’s commitment to championing the journal, raising its global visibility, and ensuring rigorous, high-quality peer review. Read more: ow.ly/YicL50X5QJF

Together with the Rubin lab @ucsantacruz.bsky.social , we found a surprise: E2F1 drives cells from G0 through the full cell cycle by activating many genes without altering chromatin accessibility! Brilliant work by first author Gerrald Lodewijk, now on the faculty job market,an exceptional scientist

Understanding human embryogenesis by building programmable stem cell-based models

From precise, lineage-specific gene expression manipulations 🧬 to high-resolution lineage mapping 🧭 and uncovering cell-cell communication 🛜. Congrats to co-authors, Carly Guiltinan, Gerrald Lodewijk, & Sayaka Kozuki, and thanks to the editorial team at @cp-trendscellbio.bsky.social
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Understanding human embryogenesis by building programmable stem cell-based models Stem cell-based embryo models provide an alternative system to study an elusive period of development. Programmed mouse embryo models have recently been generated by activating two endogenous regulato...

In this short article, we share our thoughts on how integrating synthetic biology tools 🛠️ into stem cell–based embryo models can improve their controllability and enhance their capabilities; cell.com/trends/cell-... 🧵1/2

Hard to fully celebrate anything these days with so much happening around the world. Still, I’m grateful for the chance to support our stem cell community @isscr.org ‬as a new early career editor @stemcellreports.bsky.social. Looking forward to receiving your stem cell manuscripts! #stemcells

Really grateful to @bernasozen.bsky.social
and @harrymcnamara.bsky.social
for their thoughtful preview of our CRISPRa-programmed embryo model in @cp-cellstemcell.bsky.social. Love the title and the insight. means a lot to us!🙏🏾

We wrote this step-by-step method to make it easier for more labs to use CRISPRa to program early embryonic development. Happy to help if you want to start with this or refine your system. Huge thanks to our coauthors and editors link.springer.com/protocol/10.... #stemcells #embryo #crispr

[1] Expert in cell segmentation @ali-shariati.bsky.social said that the field of spatial transcriptomics has advanced rapidly in recent years, but accurately defining cell boundaries so that transcripts can be assigned to the correct cell with high precision has remained a key bottleneck.

New from Dr. @ali-shariati.bsky.social's lab: Dr. Gerrald Lodewijk and Sayaka Kozuki used #CRISPR activation to enable the self-organization of mouse ESCs into pre-gastrulation embryo models!

📃 @cp-cellstemcell.bsky.social - bit.ly/3QYzW8x
🎙️- bit.ly/3R0KMuB

What Limits a Cell’s Size? Two physical constraints help explain why cells are so tiny: surface area-to-volume ratios and diffusion. The first article in our new Data Series.

Human cells differ in size by ~5 orders of magnitude! Interesting read on how surface to volume ration and diffusion determines limits of a cell's size! www.asimov.press/p/cell-size?... #CellBiology

To my 12 followers: please spread the word about this exciting teaching faculty #job opportunity! #AcademicChatter #Facultyjob

Self-organization of mouse embryonic stem cells into reproducible pre-gastrulation embryo models via CRISPRa programming Lodewijk et al. develop a CRISPRa-programmed embryo model using mouse pluripotent cells. By introducing controllable CRISPR activation tools into pluripotent cells, they enabled the efficient generation of a reproducible model. These tools were also used to disrupt developmental pathways, offering a method to study mechanisms of developmental disorders.

Online Now! Lodewijk et al. develop a CRISPRa-programmed embryo model using mouse pluripotent cells. By introducing controllable CRISPR activation tools into pluripotent cells, they enabled the efficient generation of a reproducible model. These tools were also used to disrupt… #stemcells

Scientists program stem cells to mimic first days of embryonic development Using CRISPR-based engineering methods to prompt stem cells to organize into embryo-like structures, scientists at UC Santa Cruz were able to create “programmable” cellular models of embryos without e...

Thanks to @baskinengineering.bsky.social communication team, Emily Cerf, for writing this news article about our paper: news.ucsc.edu/2025/03/shar... @ucscscience.bsky.social

The model has unique perturbation capabilities through multiplexing of CRISPRa, enabling mechanistic studies of self-organization and morphogenesis. Nearly all the credit goes to team and in particular first authors: Gerrald Lodewijk and Sayaka Kozuki #science #stemcells

Live imaging shows that collective rotational motions and cell clustering contributes to self-organization. These cellular migratory behavior are induced through intrinsic cell fate induction as we don't add cell-specific morphogens to form our embryo model.

👋 first post here! I’m excited to start by sharing our work on CRISPRa-programmed embryo models! We show that CRISPR activation of 2 elements is sufficient to form an embryo model similar to a natural embryo www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @cp-cellstemcell.bsky.social @ucscgenomics.bsky.social