Arjuna Rajakumar PhD

So proud of my lab mate @sagrill.bsky.social (whose on the job market 👀) for this magnum opus from @remlehmann.bsky.social lab @whiteheadinstitute.bsky.social ScRNA-seq of 🪰 germ cells reveals new biology, answers age old questions, and proposes new paradigms! 1/8 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

New paper from my lab out in Proc B 🎉 : Developmental bias of body size and caste by the fire ant social supergene doi.org/10.1098/rspb... @horacezhl.bsky.social

www.uottawa.ca/en/news-all/... @uottawa.ca @uottawascience.bsky.social

First paper published from Rajee's lab! A sign of great things to come!

New co-authored paper from a member of JEZ-B’s rising star board: Arjuna Rajakumar

Excited to share some of our new work on Queen and Worker caste determination in ants!! Especially, the surprisingly role early embryonic development plays!

Love ant oogenesis!

Excited to share our new bioRxiv preprint! 🐜🧠🥳 We explore how age, social context, and neuromodulatory systems shape temporal polyethism in harvester ants. If you’re at #IUSSI2026, stop by Carlos Zavaleta’s poster on Wednesday to hear more! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

One of the best studied places in Drosophila and they find stunning new things. Biology never stops giving 🧪

This work would not have been possible without the incredible snATAC-seq atlas of the Drosophila embryo from @diegoisworking.bsky.social @jshendure.bsky.social and @eileen-furlong.bsky.social which helped us discover that germ cells retain a totipotent chromatin state throughout development!

Incredibly excited to share my new preprint! 🪰🧬 Ever wondered how germ cells can specify their fate without having a dedicated transcriptional program? We found that germ cells keep the uncommitted chromatin state of the early embryo www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Polyphenism - one genome producing different forms - is common in eusocial insects. @arjunarajakumar.bsky.social explores the molecular basis for Pharaoh ant caste development. Queens produce two egg types, giving rise to fertile queens or sterile workers, & queen:worker changes over time. #2026SDB

After a brutal year from a horrific shoulder injury I am SO excited for #2026SDB in Las Vegas next week! @socdevbio.bsky.social It will be my first time going to the national SDB and can't wait to reconnect and meet new scientists! I will be presenting about #ants at the #HildeMangold symposium!

The elongated shape of the #Drosophila #wing is regulated by the Dachsous-Fat signalling pathway, but how? This study shows that mechanical forces regulated by this pathway modulate tissue-wide #cytoskeletal tension to orient growth during larval development @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4vp9EOh

DEADLINE APPROACHING! ⏰ Apply to Comparative Developmental Biology by July 28. This intensive two-week laboratory course is designed for graduate students in their second or later year of Ph.D studies and post-docs. 🔗 More info here: go.mbl.edu/CDB

Excited to host invited speaker Alexandra Joyner at #2026SDB in Las Vegas! 🎰🃏 Her research explores the genetic regulation of development and how signaling pathways shape tissue patterning and organ formation. 🧬✨ #devbio #developmentalbiology #genetics #SDB2026

You should apply to this fantastic course !!! New edition of the great Quintay Developmental Biology Course !!! biodesarrollo.unab.cl

I am so excited to announce that the Weber Lab will be opening in the Department of Anatomy, Physiology, & Cell Biology @ucdavisvetmed.bsky.social @ucdavis.bsky.social. We will be investigating the development and evolution of vertebra size, shape, and function. And yes, the jerboas are coming with!

Excited to share that our paper on Horizontal Gene Transfer is now out in its final form in @gigascience.bsky.social! 🥳 By analysing 163 high-quality ant genomes, we show that HGT from bacteria is widespread across the ants and likely has adaptive functions! doi.org/10.1093/giga... 🐜📸: Alex Wild

Thrilled to share that @corriemoreau.bsky.social and I have a new paper out in Evolution, digging into the varied ways that extreme worker plasticity impacts genome evolution in turtle ants! Paper 📃: doi.org/10.1093/evol... Image 📸: Steven Wang, tinyurl.com/2rbjbyjh

🎉 Welcome to our newly elected PASEDB executive council members 2026😊 Yui Suzuki (Wellesley College, USA) Veronica Hinman (Whitney Marine Lab, USA) @anyimv.bsky.social (Duke U, USA) @rebeizlab.bsky.social (U of Pittsburgh) Jennifer Brisson (U of Rochester, USA) @bruvellu.bsky.social (UFMG, Brazil)

🌟A central mission of #PASEDB is to foster networking, discussion, and a sense of community We want to highlight new #EvoDevo labs in Pan-America. In our Newsletter June edition we highlight: - Daniela J. Di Bella - @patrickrohner.bsky.social - Carolina Purcell Goes

Excited to announce the Arsenault Lab is launching this fall at Mississippi State! We'll be using ants as a model to tackle fundamental questions in evolutionary biology and evo-devo through genetics and genomics techniques. Please reach out if you're interested, or share with someone who might be!

An exciting update to a preprint from our lab! Barcode-like satellite DNA repeats enable homology detection in meiosis. Led by the fantastic @skrutlnize.bsky.social. (MJ) www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

Now's your chance to collect citeable 'at a glance' posters from @dev-journal.bsky.social & @dmmjournal.bsky.social at #ISSCR2026, including 'Stem cell-based models of early human development' by @liliulab.bsky.social and @jun-wu-lab.bsky.social l. Visit @biologists.bsky.social booth #1005.

✨ Excited to host invited speaker Roberto Mayor (@mayorlab.bsky.social) at #2026SDB in Las Vegas! 🎰🃏 His research explores morphogenesis, focusing on how cells migrate, interact, and generate diverse cell types during development. 🧬✨ #devbio

Late embryonic expansion of a novel bone ridge underlies the evolutionary transformation of cylindrically shaped forelimb bones into the flattened skeleton of the penguin flipper https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.29.735166v1

Subfunctionalization of tbx2 paralogues during photoreceptor cell specification in zebrafish https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.01.735836v1

Single-molecule imaging reveals cytoplasmic translation of P granule-enriched mRNAs in C. elegans https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.01.735846v1

Hello World! The Social Fluids Lab as arrived. ☀️Come to the Socially Transferred Materials symposium at #ESEB2025 in August. Read our preprints: 🦠 doi.org/10.1101/2025... & 🪲 doi.org/10.1101/2024... OR recent papers: 🐜 🍼 doi.org/10.1073/pnas... & 🐜🌱 doi.org/10.1038/s420...

Please don’t stop sharing and posting your science because of the current attack on it, it is still valuable and reminds us what the fight is for

Incredibly excited to rejuvenate my scientific social network on Bluesky! Current and past research interests include germline immortality, protein folding and organelle remodeling during development. Looking forward to what lies ahead!

Single-molecule mitochondrial DNA imaging reveals heteroplasmy dynamics shaped by developmental bottlenecks and selection in different organs in vivo https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01.24.634671v1

Just joined Bluesky and I'm DELIGHTED that so many of my past twitter-life ento friends are already here! I MISSED YOU GUYS!!! #entomology 🐝

For my first post here, I am happy to share that our latest paper is out at #NAR. Thanks for the smooth and constructive reviewing process and the highlight #RNAbiology #TEsky #smallRNAs (1/8) doi.org/10.1093/nar/...

Just published in Development (@biologists.bsky.social): doi.org/10.1242/dev....

The Rise of Polyploids During Environmental Catastrophes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.22.624806v1

About Traction Force Microscopy bsky.app/profile/epim...

Absolutely gorgeous story out from @eposfai.bsky.social's team. Check it out for the story, and oogle over the images 🤩

Want to be amazed by how a symbiont can be located at the center of a cell while still being an epibiont! Please read and be amazed by the symbiosis between Anaerameoba and sulfate-reducing bacteria! Now out in Nature Communications (open access)! rdcu.be/dZGNe (1/11)