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

Accessory subunits of PRC2 mimic H3K27me3 to restrict the spread of Polycomb domains Some proteins mimic the repressive mark H3K27me3, but the physiological relevance of this phenomenon was unclear. Agius et al. show that the PRC2 subunits JARID2 and PALI1 mimic H3K27me3 to antagonize...

1/ 🧵 In our new paper, we show that JARID2 and PALI1 mimic H3K27me3 to antagonise PRC2. www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

Events for February 2026 We are thrilled to announce In Formation, the first exhibition featuring work from four artist-in-residence projects that bring art into the heart of scientific stem cell and epigenetics research. ...

Particularly excited to announce "In Formation"

👉Vernissage 17h00 Munich *5th of July* @Muffatwerk

1st exhibition of Art&Science work from 4 artists, including annadumitriu.co.uk + @replifate.bsky.social Helen Pynor,Solveig Lill & Pei-Ying Lin

replifate.eu/event/in-for...

😇STAY TUNED 4more info

The chromatin remodeller CHD4 regulates transcription factor binding to both prevent activation of silent enhancers and maintain active regulatory elements CHD4 directly limits transcription factor binding to chromatin, which prevents activation of silent or cryptic enhancers but facilitates activity of active enhancers.

Final version of our paper now published.
elifesciences.org/articles/109...

Take homes:
CHD4/NuRD directly limits transcription factor residence times. At active enhancers this keeps them working efficiently. At inactive enhancers it prevents TFs from getting a foothold and causing activation. 1/n

The hard truth about how hard it is to publish in Development Every researcher knows the anticipation and trepidation that come with submitting a paper to a journal. Years of effort have been distilled into a few thousand words and a handful of figures containin...

An insightful account of the review process at one of the most pre-eminent and influential journals in developmental and stem cell biology, by @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social and fellow @dev-journal.bsky.social editors. #Development #how-to-review #how-to-publish
journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Trans-regulation of heterochromatin underlies genetic variation in 3D genome contacts Genetic variation drives phenotypic diversity and disease susceptibility. Trans -acting genetic variation coordinates genome-wide chromatin changes, yet the molecular mechanisms underlying this regula...

Very interesting pre-print from Chris Baker's lab at JAX on the mechanistic link between trans-acting genetic variants and heterochromatin formation in mice. #heterochromatin #epigenetics #variants www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

You nailed it, Chris! Thank you.

5. ECORDs may provide useful models for dissecting long-range mechanisms of gene repression and activation and for identifying and characterizing novel regulators associated with totipotency.

4. ECORDs are regulated by LINE-1 elements located in gene-distal regions that recruit both repressors and activators and may function as stage-specific silencer/enhancer modules. From LINE-1s, H3K9me2 spreads across ECORDs, repressing activation of promoter-proximal endogenous retroviruses (ERVs).

3. Depletion of the H3K9 methyltransferase EHMT2 facilitates mESC-to-2CLC conversions and elevates the expression of 2CLC-associated genes. We provide evidence that elevated H3K9me2 levels distinguish 2CLCs from totipotent cells in vivo, and that EHMT2 depletion drives 2CLCs toward a ZGA-like state.

2.While gene clusters such as Zscan4 and Obox have previously been associated with zygotic genome activation (ZGA), we identify ~1,000 highly expressed transcripts in mouse two-cell-like cells (2CLCs) that originate from >90 ECORDs, some of which encompass more than 50 genes.

1. Driven by Kaushiki Chatterjee and @cmuyehara.bsky.social, with a shout-out to @kritikakasliwal.bsky.social, we show that clusters of co-expressed genes, which we call ECORDs (EHMT2-coordinately repressed domains), are a defining feature of mouse totipotent-like cells.

Very excited to announce that our collaborative study with @efapostolou29.bsky.social on the transcriptional mechanisms distinguishing totipotent and pluripotent cells has been published (link.springer.com/article/10.1...). #totipotency #ZGA #stemcells #epigenetics #chromatin

Interesting and elegant study by Simon Braun's group in Geneva into redundant and unique functions of specific SWI/SNF components during mouse neurodevelopment. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #degrons #neurodevelopment #chromatin

Molecular basis for de novo thymus regeneration in a vertebrate, the axolotl The molecular, cellular, and functional restoration of the axolotl thymus after de novo regeneration is described.

Very happy to see this published! 🎉🎉🎉 Amazing collaboration with Max Yun and her team @maxyunlab.bsky.social @crtd-tud.bsky.social on Axolotl Thymus regeneration. Thanks also to @claireolingy.bsky.social for coverage, and grateful for December cover #scienceimmunology www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Development's Pathway to Independence Programme Our grants support and encourage the sharing of knowledge throughout the community by facilitating international collaboration, event attendance and the organisation of scientific meetings, conference...

Applications are open for @dev-journal.bsky.social 2026 Pathway to Independence (PI) programme, supporting postdocs applying for group leader positions:

Mentoring
Profile raising
Leadership training
Network building

Spread the word...

www.biologists.com/grants/devel...

Human DICER1 hotspot mutation induces both loss and gain of miRNA function Nature Structural & Molecular Biology - Jee et al. study a cancer hotspot allele of DICER1 that disrupts RNaseIIIb activity. Beyond ablating 5p hairpin cleavage, 3p passenger strands are...

new Lai lab paper @natsmb.nature.com! Dicer is specifically mutated in cancer, but we don't fully understand its molecular/reg impacts. with @danweihuangfu.bsky.social, we characterized the first knockin Dicer hotspot in hESCs, and found unexpected defects in miRNA biogenesis! 🧬 1/4

rdcu.be/eOc0q

📣 Paper alert!

I am delighted that our paper exploring the impact of Neanderthal-derived variants on the activity of a disease-associated craniofacial enhancer has been published in Development today!
journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Don't miss the chance to attend the annual virtual meeting on the advances in Nuclear Topology and 3D chromatin Architecture in Cancer organized by @janeskok @iannisaifantis1 @artsinyc and Melnick. The registration is FREE (see barcode) and the speaker lineup SPECTACULAR.

Very insightful study by @distefanolab.bsky.social and @brumbaugh-lab.bsky.social labs, revealing RNA sequestration as a mechanism to restrict and direct cellular plasticity.

For over 20 years, the mouse model organism has helped scientists uncover the biology behind human health and disease.

But the mouse reference genomes still have missing pieces.
The first collection of telomere-to-telomere mouse genomes are now available for two key mouse strains.
🧬💻

Really impressive study on spinal cord development by @giulia-boezio.bsky.social and @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social. #neurodevelopment

Happy to see some of the work I’ve done during my PhD officially published! Check it out!

CHRISTIANE NÜSSLEIN-VOLHARD - NobelPrize.org Medicine laureate Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard approaches biology with the rigour of a scientist and the sensibility of an artist. She helped solve one of biology’s great mysteries: how the genes in a ...

www.nobelprize.org/stories/wome...

Honored to be named the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Endowed Chair in Biochemistry at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Grateful to my mentors, lab members, and the NYU community—and most of all, to my amazing family for their constant support!

Hi bro. So happy to hear that - more than well-deserved!! Keep on rocking.

Jane Goodall with monarch butterfly scarf

“It actually doesn’t take much to be considered a difficult woman. That’s why there are so many of us.”
― Jane Goodall

💙 RIP to a real one. My childhood hero

X-chromosome upregulation operates on a gene-by-gene basis at RNA and protein levels - Nature Communications Here, the authors investigate gene dosage compensation in mouse pluripotent stem cells to better understand the process of X-chromosome upregulation. They report that mammalian cells can sense when segments of one of the two X chromosomes are genetically deleted in cis and compensate gene expression by upregulation in trans.

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

We are hiring an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine. Come join our collaborative research environment with state-of-the-art facilities in NYC! Application review starts Oct 22.
biochem.weill.cornell.edu/join-our-fac...

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