Well, it probably depends on what you mean by “see.” A single cell would be lik a single pixel on a monitor. I’d guess that this eye responds to light but doesn’t create a 3D (or even 2D) representation of the world.
EM from Figure 3 of Soumi Dutta and Vladimir Gross's preprint showing structure of tardigrade eye.
Whoa. Check out this tardigrade eye, comprised of just four cells, one of which has a cilium (CI) that expands into a labyrinth (orange, outer segment equivalent?) with ciliary Opsin. See preprint from Soumi Dutta, Vladimir Gross, Georg Mayer and colleagues:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Pibf1m1Bei variant results in excision of exon9 resulting in loss of the coil-coiled domain in PIBF1 protein
#DBfeature
Centriolar protein PIBF1 is required for craniofacial and forebrain development: its variants results in ciliopathies, craniofacial anomalies & semilobar holoprosencephaly
by Lylyan Pimentel, Samantha Brugmann, et al @brugmannlab.bsky.social
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Our preprint about Togaram1 mouse knockout brain phenotypes is on bioRxiv! This is a model of Joubert Syndrome ciliopathy caused by loss of Togaram1 (aka Crescerin1 aka FAM179B). Primary #cilia defects in neural stem cells. Neurogenesis, mitotis, apoptosis, morphogenesis phenotypes! #cellbio
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.
14th Structural Birth Defects Meeting flyer Children's Hospital of Philadelphia; Philadelphia | September 21-23 2026; Abstract Deadline June 22; Photo of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia; Abstracts & Registration Open May 1; Keynote Speakers: Erica E. Davis, PhD, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, Northwestern University; Jeremy Reiter, MD, PhD, University of California, San Francisco
Save the Date! The 14th Structural Birth Defects Meeting will be September 21-23 @childrensphila.bsky.social Keynotes: Erica E. Davis @luriechildrens.bsky.social @feinberg.northwestern.edu & Jeremy Reiter @reitergroup.bsky.social at UC San Francisco. Abstracts & registration open May 1. #14thSBD
I am excited to share our most recent work collaborating with @centriolelab.bsky.social and @stearnslab.bsky.social to look at the ciliary base of mammalian multiciliated cells w/ cryo-ET, XL/MS, and U-ExM www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
It’s done!! Molecular architecture of the ciliary base in mammalian multiciliated cells! A study 13 years in the making 👴, thanks to collab with @stearnslab.bsky.social + @centriolelab.bsky.social & visionary work by @computingcaitie.bsky.social, who integrated native #cryoET with #XLMS & #UExM 🧪🧶🧬🔬
Park, Liu, Sun, Roll-Mecak et al. present the crystal structure of an RPGR–TTLL5 co-complex, which reveals TTLL recognition paradigms for non-tubulin substrates and sheds light on disease mechanism for retinal dystrophies caused by TTLL5 and RPGR mutations. rupress.org/jcb/article/...
#Cilia
Congratulations to the legendary scientist Judith Kimble!!!
We stand on the shoulders of giants.
#womeninSTEM #celegans
Sweaty palms…
Had a long month of news? Settle down with our comforting review describing how membrane proteins get made in mammalian cells.
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...
Great news, James! It’s deeply deserved!
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...
ZMAP: A single-cell meta-atlas of zebrafish embryonic development reveals a consensus hierarchy of cell identities www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...
An obit for Mike Bishop. Among his many accomplishments, pioneering work on Hedgehog signaling with Pascal Thérond. I asked him for his highlights once and he told me about throwing the first pitch at a Giants game. A true giant himself. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/22/o...
We are looking for a new group leader to join the IGH (Montpellier, France). I can’t wait to meet my future colleague! Apply :-) More infos here: igh.cnrs.fr/join-igh-as-...
Linocut portrait of biochemist and medical researcher Maud Menten (1879-1960) with the Michalis-Menten equation in blue and a histology image in pinks and purples in the background.
Happy birthday to 🇨🇦Canadian medical researcher & #biochemist Maud Menten (1879-1960). 👩🏼🔬🧪🐡 #histsci Not only was she an author of Michaelis-Menten equation for enzyme kinetics, she invented the azo-dye coupling for alkaline phosphatase, 1st example of enzyme histochemistry, still used in imaging of
The US NIH is stepping back from 'top-down' science.
My latest analysis for @nature.com shows that funding calls have plummeted by 90%, funneling billions into broad, 'investigator-initiated' ideas, rather than targeted, agency-driven ones.
A massive shift for the American biomedical enterprise.
BREAKING: @delauro.house.gov announces at a House Oversight hearing with NIH director Jay Bhattacharya that OMB approved the agency's apportionment last night.
That means the agency should have access to its appropriated funds — 42 days after its spending bill passed.
Annual reminder: if you’ve been accepted to multiple graduate programs and are still deciding, please let the ones you’re definitely not going to know as soon as possible!
-Someone who got into his PhD off the waitlist the day after the deadline
The other theme I found compelling was how storytelling stitches a society together. Le Guin touched on this explicitly in her National Book Foundation acceptance, if I remember right. As scientific papers are the stories scientists tell each other, I ponder this function of storytelling.
Just finished Le Guin’s “The Telling.” I’d be curious what others thought of it. The critiques of the Cultural Revolution, imperialism and fundamentalism seemed kinda clumsy to me. But the parallel tales of two societies riven with distrust and violence, then stepping back from the brink resonated.
The Guna lab (www.gunalab.org) is expanding and looking for a lab tech and a post doc to start working on exciting mitochondrial biology!
Lab techs: aprecruit.ucsf.edu/JPF05953
Post docs please reach out with:
1) cover letter
3) curriculum vitae
3) contact information for three references
Congratulations, Bill! Wonderful news! 🎉
SPOILER: Bordetella sticks to #cilia
Bacteria deliver a microtubule-binding protein into mammalian cells to promote colonization | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Photo of Gail R. Martin
SDB is sad to announce the passing of Gail R. Martin (1944-2026) after a short illness in San Francisco. Martin served as SDB President in 2007 and was the recipient the Conklin Medal in 2002 and the @FASEBorg Excellence in Science Award in 2011. bit.ly/4aIfu5d
Asgardian archaea have a tubulin that can make microtubule-esque structures? Wow!
Will phylogenetics or AF3 be the first to find Asgard’s microtubule motors, nucleators, MAPs or MIPs?
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
I’ve been thinking about Gail this past week. Hurrah to Denis’ words. In addition to all of the above, a passionate mentor, a builder of the developmental biology community, a fearless pioneer in genetics, a careful communicator. Her absence is palpable.
Very sad news. Gail Martin (1944-2026) was a figure in developmental biology. She pioneered the field of ES cells.
A great colleague, a friend and a lovely person.
