I'm attending the ISSCR 2026 Annual Meeting, join me Register now

I am excited to announce that I have received a Travel & Merit Award for the #ISSCR2026 Annual Meeting about my work modeling mouse cranial and cardiac neural crest development in vitro. Many thanks to my mentor @tvierbuchen.bsky.social for his guidance and support throughout this project @ISSCR.org

Congrats to @annbaako.bsky.social for her successful thesis defense!! @justinperryphd.bsky.social and I are so proud of you!

Look out for a new version of Ann's manuscript on modeling tissue-resident macrophage development from mouse PSCs coming soon.

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

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

AP-1 is both night science and day science

Delighted to share our discoveries about one of the brain's neurotransmitter systems:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Together with colleagues at the @alleninstitute.org, we have learned a lot about a tiny cluster of neurons in the brainstem locus coeruleus (LC) that releases norepinephrine (NE). 1

For decades, molecular biology and human genetics have been built around measurements of average gene expression. That was partly conceptual, but also technological: for a long time, the mean was the quantity we could measure most reliably. Our new preprint argues that this framework is incomplete.

I'm so pleased to see this work on neural crest development out in Nature today! This was a truly fantastic collaboration with @gleesonlab.bsky.social, Keng loi (Harry) Vong and @xiaoxuyang.bsky.social. Huge thanks to everyone involved 👏 🧪🐣 #devbio

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

Distinctive DNA sequence features define epigenetic longevity of inflammatory memory Tissues harbor memories of inflammation, which heighten sensitivity to diverse future assaults. Whether and how these adaptations are sustained through time and cell division remain poorly understood....

Example #314:
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

AP-1 TFs control everything, Example # 313

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

👀 Absolute banger paper. Leveraging cattle/pig GWAS/eQTL to help explain the missing regulatory gap in humans. Consistent with previous works, selection makes identifying relevant eQTLs in humans challenging.

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

Epigenetic memory of colitis promotes tumour growth - Nature Colonic stem cells retain a memory of inflammation following disease resolution and there is a mechanistic link between chronic inflammation and malignancy, suggesting potential strategies to mitigate...

AP-1 transcription factors do everything, example #312.

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

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

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...

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 ...

Huge congratulations to James Briscoe @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social for receiving the 2026 BSDB Waddington Medal, recognising an extraordinary career of discovery, mentorship, and leadership in developmental biology.

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

Intraspecific variation in the duration of epigenetic inheritance in wild isolates of C. elegans Frejacques, Saglio, et al. demonstrate variation among C. elegans wild isolates in the multigenerational memory of an initial RNA interference trigger. Genetic polymorphisms and environmental variable...

Really cool paper from Marie-Anne Felix's lab. Genetic variation in set-24 controls the duration of epigenetic inheritance.

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Can a mouse be cloned indefinitely? Decades-long experiment has answers Repeated cloning from a single mouse failed after 58 generations. Researchers say harmful DNA changes are to blame.

After 20 years, 58 generations and more than 30,000 cloning attempts, a team of researchers has hit the limit on the number of times a single mouse can be serially re-cloned

go.nature.com/3Pue5Iz

BAF complexes maintain accessibility at stimulus-responsive chromatin and are required for transcriptional stimulus responses www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...

One of my very favorite papers from the lab! Shows that individual cells can learn by forming memories. Amazing work by Jess Li!

🧵 CTCF is essential for embryonic development, but why has remained unclear. By combining gastruloids with a temporal degron system, we uncovered a surprising dual function — and it changes how we think about CTCF's role in development. 1/8 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Beyond the baseline: mapping the context-specific regulatory landscape of disease Genome-wide association studies have identified thousands of intergenic variants associated with disease, most of which are presumed to act by affecti…

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A Cooperative Mechanism of Eukaryotic Transcription Factor Target Search www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...

The Jackson Laboratory's Bill Skarnes wins top international prize in transgenic science Skarnes' groundbreaking contributions to transgenic technologies and genome engineering made a generation of experiments possible

JAX is proud to announce that Professor Bill Skarnes has been selected as the 17th recipient of the International Society for Transgenic Technologies (@transtechsociety.org) Prize, one of the highest honors in the field. 🧬 🧪

Laboratory Assistant II - Human Genetics - UCLA Health Careers - Job #29031 - Los Angeles, CA Take a look at a great career opportunity where you can make a real difference at UCLA Health

We're hiring villagers!

We are looking for a lab technician to help us discover how gene-by-environment interactions shape the developing brain via in vitro cell villages. Please DM me or visit our website at mfwellslab dot com for more info.

Deadline to apply is March 11th: tinyurl.com/34seyjaj

Major findings from paper linked below:

NEXT TUE: DDD seminar, Feb. 17, 2026 @ 1PM Eastern US: Dr. Annerieke Sierksma (in Dr. Bart De Strooper's group at KU Leuven) will share her recent work on "Polygenic risk for Alzheimer’s disease shapes microglial inflammatory and antigen-presentation programs in vivo". carlocolantuoni.org/seminar

Structural basis for CTCF-mediated chromatin organization www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02...

For anyone interested in the history of molecular biology, I cannot recommend Judson's The Eighth Day of Creation highly enough. One of the great book on the history of science.

I have two copies because a actually wore out the first one (paperback)

www.cshlpress.com/default.tpl?...

Developmental Diversity in a Dish Seminar Series - YouTube A virtual seminar series focusing on stem cell models and functional variation across human iPSC lines. Monthly virtual seminar series, held on one Tuesday o...

Today's DDD seminar "A systematic study of morphogen patterning and its reproducibility in human neural organoids" given by Nadezhda Azbukina (from Dr. Barbara Treutlein's group in Basel) is now online at www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

🆕 ADVANCE ONLINE 🆕

RESEARCH PAPER: Plagl1 and Lrrc58 control mammalian body size by triggering target-directed microRNA degradation of miR-322 and miR-503
By LaVigne et al., and Joshua Mendell
➡️ genesdev.cshlp.org/content/early/2025/11/10...

Josh Mendell HHMI

Dissecting gene regulatory networks governing human cortical cell fate - Nature Systematic screening of transcription factors reveals conserved mechanisms governing cortical radial glia lineage progression across primates and provides a framework for functional dissecti...

1/ Our new study, led by Jingwen Ding, examines the role of transcription factors during human neurogenesis to identify gene regulatory networks influencing cell fate, maturation, and subtype specification
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

B Lymphocyte Protein Factories produced by Hematopoietic Stem Cell Gene Editing www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01...