James introducing his work on neural patterning

James advertising Development and its initiatives

Editor in chief of Development @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social opening the floor today at the Allen Institute Lake Conference 2026 meeting ! @biologists.bsky.social

Attending 'Modeling Life from Cells to Tissues: Emergence and Self-Organization' by @lakeconferences.bsky.social?

Editors, @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social, @pfrancois.bsky.social, @irenemiguel-aliaga.bsky.social & Matthias Lutolf, are present - chat to them about publishing with us.

tinyurl.com/yvrse8se

An illustrated summary of the BSDB Spring Meeting 2026 - the Node I recently attended the BSDB Spring Meeting, and decided to spend most of my time at the conference sketching. The result is this illustrated summary -

An illustrated summary of the BSDB Spring Meeting 2026

In this post, @alexneaverson.bsky.social shares her insights on using illustration to share the joy of developmental biology at the 2026 @bsdb.bsky.social meeting.

thenode.biologists.com/an-illustrat...

#SciArt

Sorry for the cliché: not sure how to avoid it...

I am very honoured to join such an illustrious list of previous winners

And – of course – the credit largely belongs to the fabulous people I have been lucky enough to work with @dunnschool.bsky.social and earlier @mrclmb.ac.uk

Sharing this very sad news. Greg influenced many beyond his lab and across fields. This is a very nice write up from CRUK-CI highlighting what he meant to many of us. Thank you for putting into words what many of us can't right now.

www.cruk.cam.ac.uk/news/in-memo...

Congratulations to the @dev-journal.bsky.social 2025 Outstanding Paper nominations, & special mention to the winner by Yang et al doi.org/10.1242/dev....

For the top three nominations and an interview with the winners see:

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

Screenshot of a journal editorial webpage titled “Development’s 2025 Outstanding Paper Prize,” dated 8 April 2026. Authors listed are James Briscoe, Alex Eve, and Steve Wilson. The page introduces the Outstanding Paper Prize, includes article information, a DOI link, and text recognising papers published in Development in 2025.

Congratulations to Xi Yang, Yun Zhou & co for winning our 2025 Outstanding Paper Prize. Their paper addresses broad & long-standing questions about how cells become new stem cell populations in the fern Ceratopteris.

Read the Editorial: doi.org/10.1242/dev....
Paper: doi.org/10.1242/dev....

‘Why is publishing so expensive?’ For many of us who work in scientific publishing, the title of this Editorial is a question we hear all the time when we're out talking to academics. And it's a perfectly reasonable one. After all, re...

A question I get asked all the time by @dev-journal.bsky.social authors "Why does it cost so much to publish a paper?"

We break down the finances and explain where the money goes

Spoiler: quality publishing takes a village (people + infrastructure)

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

‘Why is publishing so expensive?’ For many of us who work in scientific publishing, the title of this Editorial is a question we hear all the time when we're out talking to academics. And it's a perfectly reasonable one. After all, re...

A question I get asked all the time by @dev-journal.bsky.social authors "Why does it cost so much to publish a paper?"

We break down the finances and explain where the money goes

Spoiler: quality publishing takes a village (people + infrastructure)

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

Multi-axial self-organization properties of mouse embryonic stem cells into gastruloids - PubMed The emergence of multiple axes is an essential element in the establishment of the mammalian body plan. This process takes place shortly after implantation of the embryo within the uterus and relies on the activity of gene regulatory networks that coordinate transcription in space and time. Whereas …

Published in @dev-journal.bsky.social ~4 years before the paper in N*ture introducing gastruloids: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30283134/

James Briscoe presenting in front of an auditorium.

Congratulations to our Editor-in-Chief @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social on receiving the 2026 BSDB Waddington Medal. He has made a big impact on Development since becoming EiC in 2018, including introducing Associate Editors, launching the Pathway to Independence programme & developing the Node Network.

Truly honoured to receive the @bsdb.bsky.social Marie Johansson prize! A testament to Marie’s legacy and the mentors/collaborators I was lucky to work with.
Such a privilege to grow in the #DevBio community that's supported me since the start of my career.
Looking forward to more exciting science!

2026 Waddington Medal Winner - James Briscoe - BSDB - British Society for Developmental Biology We are very pleased to announce that this year’s Waddington medal winner is James Briscoe. His fundamental discoveries have helped shape our understanding of of how morphogens work, and he has played ...

Honoured and overwhelmed to receive the 2026 Waddington Medal. Science is a team effort, and I've been fortunate to work alongside exceptional people asking hard questions. Thank you to the BSDB and to everyone who has been part of the journey.

bsdb.org/2026/03/24/2...

James Briscoe on a podium presenting during the 2026 BSDB meeting about Development.

Our Editor-in-Chief @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social spoke at the 2026 @bsdb.bsky.social meeting about Development, the Node and The Company of Biologists' initiatives.

Please speak to James about the many reasons to choose Development to publish your paper.

journals.biologists.com/dev/pages/ab...

Evidence for chronological diversification of spinal neuron subtypes by a shared sequence of transcription factors Molecular and functional diversification of spinal cord output neurons by a conserved sequence of transcription factors.

New work by @sagnera.bsky.social & co

A conserved sequence of TFs: OC2 → Pou2f2 → Pou3f1 drives chronological diversification of spinal neuron subtypes across multiple cardinal domains

Spinal neuron diversity is generated by integrating spatial & temporal programs

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Reviews Editor Ingrid Tsang and the Node Community Manager Andrea Murillo will be attending BSDB Spring Meeting 2026. Feel free to reach out to them with questions you might have about publishing in the journal or other activities from our not-for-profit publisher The Company of Biologists. Collect Development and the Node goodies from The Company of Biologists’ booth. Photos of Ingrid and Andrea

We are looking forward to attending @bsdb.bsky.social 2026: Molecules to Morphogenesis this week with our colleagues from @dev-journal.bsky.social and @the-node.bsky.social. Visit our stand if you have any questions about publishing, grants and/or meetings and to collect lots of great giveaways.

A promotional graphic for Development and The Node announcing attendance at the BSDB 2026 Spring Meeting. The Development logo appears in the top left. In the top right, there is a BSDB 2026 banner with event dates: 23–26 March 2026 at the University of Warwick. Text states that Reviews Editor Ingrid Tsang and Node Community Manager Andrea Murillo will be attending the meeting. Additional text invites attendees to reach out with questions about publishing or other activities from The Company of Biologists, and mentions collecting Development and Node goodies at the booth. Contact email addresses and social media icons with handles for Development and The Node are displayed at the bottom. Two portrait photos appear on the right side of the graphic.

Excited for BSDB's 2026 Meeting organised by @abinagui.bsky.social @vmetzis.bsky.social, @gastruloids.bsky.social & co?

Our Reviews Editor @ingridtsang.bsky.social & the Node's Community Manager @andreamurillo.bsky.social will also be attending - come and chat to them about our journal & the Node.

Hi from the new Community Manager - the Node An introduction to the Node's new Community Manager, Andrea Murillo

Hi from the new Community Manager

The Node welcomes Andrea Murillo as the new Community Manager. Here, @andreamurillo.bsky.social introduces herself to our #DevBio and #StemCell communities.

thenode.biologists.com/hi-from-the-...

Graphics stating Apply to be a Preprint Editor

If you are interested in this initiative, Development has a call for Preprint Editors – active researchers with their finger on the pulse of preprint literature – to commission and write ‘In preprints’ articles. Apply by Monday 30 March 2026.

Find out more: journals.biologists.com/dev/pages/pr...

nf-core/cutandrun: A Nextflow pipeline for the analysis of CUT&RUN, CUT&Tag and TIP-seq datasets Hodgetts et al., (2026). nf-core/cutandrun: A Nextflow pipeline for the analysis of CUT&RUN, CUT&Tag and TIP-seq datasets. Journal of Open Source Software, 11(119), 9672, https://doi.org/10.21...

If you're analysing Cut&Run or Cut&Tag data here's a nf-core NextFlow pipeline to simplify and standardise data processing

joss.theoj.org/papers/10.21...

Gene regulatory networks: from correlative models to causal explanations Nature Reviews Genetics - In this Perspective, Maizels and Briscoe discuss the limitations of current models of gene regulatory networks and outline solutions to harness data abundance without...

New Perspective form Rory Maizels & me: "Gene regulatory networks: from correlative models to causal explanations"

Gene regulatory networks are supposed to give us mechanistic explanations of development, so why are we drowning in 'hairballs' of statistical correlations?

rdcu.be/e7zx7

Graphics stating Apply to be a Preprint Editor

Preprint Editors – Development's next step into the preprint landscape

In this Editorial, @reinierprosee.bsky.social, @amjeve.uk and @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social announce a call for Preprint Editors in Development. Apply by 30 March.

doi.org/10.1242/dev....

Mice and human embryos look similar at some stages of development, but the time to reach those stages differs. @trayon.bsky.social asks how developmental tempo emerges, showing species-specific protein turnover correlates w/ developmental speeds & might link other factors, like metabolism. #gfe2026

One week left until the abstract submission deadline for our symposium on the developmental origins of paediatric cancers on the 8th of June!

Learn more about how the microenvironment regulates cell behaviour in @dev-journal.bsky.social's Special Issue - The Extracellular Environment in Development, Regeneration and Stem Cells #DevSIextracellular, currently being compiled for completion this summer

journals.biologists.com/dev/issue/15...

How can we hope to understand organismal development when it is controlled by huge, complex networks of interacting genes?


One option is to move away from molecular details and focus on learning representations and rules.

Check out the new perspective from me and @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social

Gene regulatory networks: from correlative models to causal explanations - Nature Reviews Genetics In this Perspective, Maizels and Briscoe discuss the limitations of current models of gene regulatory networks and outline solutions to harness data abundance without compromising explanatory power.

The goal: move from statics to dynamics; from asking "what is a GRN made of?" to "how does a GRN map inputs to outputs?"

The challenge: Bridging data abundance & conceptual understanding

New experimental & computational approaches are needed

Read the details here:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We suggest 3 linked principles to build these models:

(1) models grounded in cellular & evolutionary biology
(2) molecular constraints to reduce the solution space
(3) synthetic biology & cis-regulatory perturbations to generate training data & test predictions

We argue for a return to causal GRN models

Using representation learning to capture the emergent logic of gene regulation without needing to model every molecular interaction

Think Marr's levels of analysis, applied to developmental biology

Single-cell genomics has given us unprecedented data to analyse GRNs

But more data ≠ more understanding

Current inference methods often perform no better than random guesswork & multimodal approaches bring new problems as fast as they solve old ones