Congratulations to Dave on his new BioRxiv paper on Vg1 processing!

Vg1 acts with Nodal to induce mesoderm formation in embryos. Interestingly, Vg1 is only processed and secreted with Nodal. Dave used synthetic biology techniques he had previously developed to address outstanding questions of the mechanisms of Vg1’s retention, processing and secretion.

Learn more by reading the paper here or by his informative gif on twitter, don’t forget to follow him!

Schier/Regev collaboration paper chosen as one of Nature Biotechnology's 25 landmark papers!

Nature Biotechnology is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a collection of 25 landmark papers published in their journal, including a collaborative paper from the Schier and Regev labs. To read more about the collection click here

To read the paper titled Spatial reconstruction of single-cell gene expression data by Rahul, Jeff, David, Alex and Aviv click here

Bushra's newest work published in Neuron!

Bushra’s newest work on the “Emergence of neuronal diversity during vertebrate brain development” has been published in Neuron . As part of this work Bushra and coauthors cataloged ∼220,000 zebrafish brain cells encompassing 12 stages from embryo to larva to establish a zebrafish brain development atlas. They segment these cells into ∼800 clusters with both known and novel gene markers and provide an overview of the diversification of neurons and progenitors across these time points. 

To find out more read the paper here!

Congratulations to Max and Annika on being awarded a SNSF Spark grant!

The aim of Swiss National Science Foundation Spark Grant is the rapid funding of projects that show unconventional thinking and introduce a unique approach. Max and Annika will be investigating behaviour and ecology in Lake Tanganyikan cichlids in collaboration with Walter Salzburger’s group at the Zoological Institute at the University of Basel.

To find out more about spark click here

To find out more about the Salzburger lab and their work on cichlid speciation click here

Photo credit: Maxwell Shafer

Alex publishes review on single-cell multimodal omics

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) has revolutionized many fields by allowing high-throughput analysis of cell transcriptomes at an individual level. In a newly published review Alex writes about how scRNA-seq has been paired with other methods to obtain more complete knowledge of the genotypes and phenotypes of cells.

Read more here: Single-cell Biology: Beyond the Sum of Its Parts

New bioRxiv paper on Nodal morphogen signaling gradients

Congratulations to Nate and Adam as their new paper is up on the BioRxiv!

How morphogen signaling gradients are established is incompletely explained yet crucial for our understanding of how organisms develop into precisely formed animals. Nate and Adam have investigated the role of Nodal co-receptor Oep and find that it is important for generating correct Nodal signaling patterns by restricting ligand spread and sensitizing cells. Read more here:

The pattern of Nodal morphogen signaling is shaped by co-receptor expression