EMBL DB unit

We have a new perspective out with @3xueying.bsky.social and @cauawest.bsky.social In @genomebiolevol.bsky.social academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...

It was a lot of fun to show our research and our research organisms to so many curious and excited visitors. Many congratulations to the @embl.org Science Education & Public Engagement team for their excellent organisation. Looking forward to the next event in 2027 🎉

How does an embryo build itself? Join experimentalists and theorists as they discuss the principles of biological forms, from molecular mechanisms to whole organisms #EESDevelopment

6-month internship to explore (genome-wide) enhancer-promoter interactions in the crustacean Parhyale – Hosted by the Averof and Ghavi-Helm teams at IGFL Lyon – Early 2027 – Student (any level) with some prior experience in mol biol – Stipend 695 €/month

Discover Claudia’s interdisciplinary journey, a postdoc in the Vincent Group @floravincent.bsky.social @embl.org and a 2024 Schmidt Science Fellow @schmidtsciences.bsky.social. Claudia applies her neuroscience expertise to explore the complexity of the ocean 👇 www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCgY...

🎓Congratulations to Gaurav Vaidya from the Vu @hanhtkvu.bsky.social and Dorrity @mwdorr.bsky.social groups @embl.org who has successfully defended his PhD thesis titled “Cellular drivers of reproductive plasticity uncovered by life-cycle trajectory inference” 🥳 #planarians #plasticity #lifecycle

Check out the preprint for more experiments and details. If you are interested in having the line please get in touch with Evo-Devo-Tempo Lab or Aulehla Lab. Huge thanks to everyone involved 🙏 @embldbunit.bsky.social @cibss.bsky.social @biologyunifreiburg.bsky.social @dfg.de

✨ At this week DB unit seminar @embl.org, Thomas Beavis, a PhD student in the Vincent group @floravincent.bsky.social presented his work on phytoplankton symbiosis #diatoms #symbyosis #marinebiology #DevBio

European Researchers’ Night is returning to Heidelberg! On 25 Sept 2026, EMBL and Merck will host a Festival of Science and Curiosity on the EMBL Heidelberg campus, with hands-on science, lab tours, the Curiosity Cube™ mobile science lab, and activities for all ages. www.embl.org/news/connect...

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

🔥Congrats to Gaurav @gvaidya.bsky.social and Hanh Vu @hanhtkvu.bsky.social @embl.org on their first preprint! Using the planarian Phagocata morgani, they show that temperature acts like a switch controlling a stem cell pool that decides whether a worm remains asexual or develops new sexual organs 🪱

🎓Congratulations to Laura Rustarazo-Calvo @laura-rustarazo.bsky.social from the Petridou group @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social who has successfully defended her PhD thesis titled “Uncoupling adhesion- and density-driven rigidity transitions triggers epithelial organisation in embryonic tissues”

I am thrilled to share my PhD work with @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social @embl.org: www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/... A fun collaboration with Bernat Corominas-Murtra, Adrián Aguirre-Tamaral, @bart-smeets.bsky.social , Jef Vanghel and Tom Belpaire! Read the story in the comments below ⤵️

Double preprint! 👇 Check out our latest studies on timing, heterogeneity and collective behaviour (with a fun tiny bonus on evolution!) 1. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 2. arxiv.org/abs/2605.13234

First pre-print from the lab, a collaborative effort led by Jess Bourn @bournsupremacy.bsky.social, a fantastic PhD in my group. We resolve a key problem in development + evolution: how do we quantify heterochrony and link temporal variation to phenotype? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Our beautiful mosaic embryo made it to the cover! 🔥

A very pleasant surprise to see that we got the cover for this paper 🥳 @natphys.nature.com

✨ At the last DB unit unit seminar @embl.org, Jaroslav Ferenc @jarofrnc.bsky.social a postdoc in the Ikmi group @aikmi.bsky.social, showed how tissue-specific metabolic preferences drive developmental decisions #devbio #nematostella #devmetabolism

🎓 Congratulations to Kristina Mirkes from the Vu group @hanhtkvu.bsky.social @embl.org who has successfully defended her PhD thesis titled “Regulatory mechanisms of size-dependent growth dynamics in Schmidtea mediterranea” #DevelopmentalBiology #Planarian #PhDDefense #newdoctor

Unplanned reunion with former @embldbunit.bsky.social labmates @aliseleit.bsky.social and @jorgelazaro.bsky.social at #EED2026!!

Here the published version of our work on uncoupling different types of tissue phase transitions during development! Find out more on how contact surface tension-driven rigidity transitions trigger tricellular junction formation and initiate epithelial organization! @natphys.nature.com

✨At this week's DB unit seminar @embl.org, Serena Flori @serenaflori.bsky.social, a postdoc in the Vincent group @floravincent.bsky.social, presented her work on the structural basis of diatom responses to marine heatwaves. You can also check out her paper here: www.cell.com/current-biol...

Glad to see this out in its final form! www.nature.com/articles/s41... What changed since the preprint? Wonderful experiments disentangling the effect of receptor binding vs tissue porosity on Nodal diffusion, plus one of the smoothest review experiences! Thanks @natcellbio.nature.com & reviewers 🙏

✨ This week, Nikki Cannon, a PhD student in the van Gestel group @jordivangestel.bsky.social, presented her work on creating an end-to-end assembly and annotation pipeline for Dictyostelids at the DB unit seminar @embl.org

Many thanks @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social from @embl.org Heidelberg for visiting us @centuri-ls.bsky.social and giving a truly exciting talk on cell division timing and phase transition during embryogenesis 🤩! Developmental biology is really cool 😎

🔥New work from the Crocker group @justinmcrocker.bsky.social @embl.org on the mechanistic and evolutionary basis of dominance from cis-regulatory variation in Drosophila Congratulations to Noa @ottilie.bsky.social and all the authors 🥳

🔥New paper from the Ikmi group @aikmi.bsky.social @embl.org who discovered a "secret" second valve in Nematostella vectensis that acts as a pressure release system. Congratulations to all the authors 🥳

✨ At this week's DB Unit Seminar @embl.org , Levin Riedel, a phD student in the Ikmi group @aikmi.bsky.social, presented his work on the effects of neuropeptides on morphogenesis and development of Nematostella vectensis larvae and polyps.

✨ At this week's DB seminar @embl.org, Jlenia Vitale, a postdoc in the Petridou group @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social, presented her work on the interplay between cell-cell adhesion and mitochondrial activity during tissue phase transitions in Zebrafish and killifish embryos 🐟🔬#DevelopmentalBiology

🔥 Fantatstic work by Antonella Ruggiero and colleagues @embl.org and @szndohrn.bsky.social that opens new doors to understanding the decision-making mechanisms of phytoplankton and the hidden complexity of single-celled life in our oceans #Diatoms #DevelopmentalBiology #SingleCellRNA #Phytoplankton

Apart from learning, there are also important (and fun) networking activities going on at #EESBioOsc. #SciencePubQuiz

When conference participants take part in a human experiment... How to get a group of humans to spontaneously synchronize their walking behaviours in the absence of "leaders" (watch out for the one who was attempting to cheat the system!) What are the most important cues here? 😏 #EESBioOsc

Happening now: poster session at #EESBioOsc. Lots of interesting discussions.. who will win the poster prize? 🧬🔬

Great start at #EESBioOsc 👏

Exciting news 🎉 Ali, who has been a postdoc in the Aulehla group @embl.org, is heading off to an incredible next chapter. Congratulations Ali on your Emmy-Noether funded group leader position at the Faculty of Biology at the University of Freiburg. We are so proud to have had you with us!

✨ At last week's DB Unit Seminar @embl.org, Camilla Autorino @cami-autorino.bsky.social, a postdoc in the Petridou Group @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social, presented her work on how tissue rigidity phase transition shapes morphogen gradients in zebrafish embryos 🐟🔬

Hard to think the EMBO/EMBL symposium on the cellular mechanics of #symbiosis is already over @embl.org. Some personal scientific heroes in there, and a very unique collegial and open minded vibe (and great dancers💃🏻 ) #EESSymbiosis Wonderful way to reconnect with science after 🐣! #womeninscience

That’s a wrap on our Mechanics of Symbiosis meeting in Heidelberg 🎉 Had an amazing time organizing this with @berasymbionts.bsky.social, @floravincent.bsky.social & Tom Richards. Safe trip home everyone! #EESSymbiosis @events.embl.org

🔥Exciting new paper from the Ikmi group @embl.org! The authors identified a set of mesoscale mechanical modules that can be used to predict species-specific shapes by combining a comparative analysis of cnidarian larval morphogenesis with active surface theory #morphogenesis #cnidaria

✨ At this week's DB seminar @embl.org, Laura Sanchis Pla, a PhD student in the van Gestel group, presented her research on the defense strategies of bacteria in response to protistan predation. She explored the diverse life-history decisions that bacteria make to survive in natural environments.

✨In the DB unit seminar this week, Amrutha Palavalli, a postdoc in the Vu @hanhtkvu.bsky.social group @embl.org, presented a new approach to studying the life history evolution and identifying the trade-offs of the flatworm Schmidtea mediterranea #planarians #sciRNAseq

We have extended the abstract deadline by a week! Looking forward to seeing you many of you here!

✨At this week's DB seminar @embl.org , Alvin Han, a postdoc in the Arendt group, presented his work on the variation of microbiome and symbioses of Platynereis species across European coastlines 🪱 #TREC #microbiome

And just like that, #EESCollectivity is done! These last four days just flew by and we want to thank every participant, speaker, and organiser for making the first edition of the EMBO | EMBL Symposium 'Collectivity in living systems' such a success. We hope to see you at another event soon! 👋

Less than a week left for abstract submission for #EESMechanobiology - join us in this long-standing meeting on the mechanics of life.

Excited to share our new review in @dev-journal.bsky.social on tissue phase transitions during development! @karengrace12.bsky.social @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social 🔗 doi.org/10.1242/dev....