Tribute to Gail Martin www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Discoverer of #EScells whose curiosity went beyond cells, genes / embryos. Good for younger generations to learn @ these giants. NB. Unfathomable why she was overlooked for a Nobel Prize, though this says more @ prizes than @ her.

Sí! VAMOS!

For those of us of a certain age his work, that changed the way we think @ the #ImmuneSystem and answered a key question - #AbDiversity- was an inspiration in an era of true discoveries S. Tonegawa l1nq.com/a3rwkdo

Fritz Kahn had an amazing eye to convey the beauty and magic of biology, Here, from “man in structure and function”, the way #evolution has shaped fish gills into various human organs. #Infographics before its time.

Wonderful time, as always, at #ASCB! Thanks @pasteur.fr @LabTajbakhsh , @zenlabpasteur A great course, an stimulating atmosphere, great students have & to cap it all, boat trip on the Seine against the backdrop of Paris. #Gastruloid module w/ @da40cambs

As any good experiment, this one turns out a surprise: a requirement of Hox genes in the specification of #Endoderm!

In the absence of Hox genes, segmentation is not affected but the identity of the segments is changed and defaults to that of the unsegmented region of the embryo. There are echoes, with differences, of the phenotype in Drosophila in this observation shorturl.at/mfsjh

The @Duboule lab has already used #gastruloid to explore the mechanisms of Hox gene regulation e.g www.nature.com/articles/s41...

There are two related patterns of expression of Hox genes in vertebrates: one during limb development and another one during axial elongation and diversification in the embryo.

But there is a catch. In vertebrates there is a complement of four Hox clusters in vertebrates with much redundancy and functional diversification.

The discovery was that these genes are associated with the diversification of a segmental organization of the body plan. Their discovery in vertebrates raised the question of whether they played a similar role -which was not, and shouldn’t be taken for granted. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17553908/

We lucked out because there was only one cluster, a single copy of each member of the cluster, that allowed classical genetic analysis of their function.

One of the most important open questions in #DevBio is the function of the #Hox genes in vertebrate axial organization. Hox genes come in clusters and were discovered through ingenious genetic analysis in #Drosophila by Ed Lewis www.nature.com/articles/276....

IMPORTANT study from @hocinerekaik.bsky.social @denisduboule.bsky.social and a significant validation of SCBEMs, #gastruloids in particular, as a discovery tool www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧵

On the 50th anniversary of ‘The Selfish Gene’, still amazes me Dawkins cavalier view of #organisms as ‘colonies of genes’…… Their cellular basis ignored, development non existent and in #evolution, they appear by magic. An important hole in his views. In biology u forget @ #cell at your peril

Wonderful, prescient representation of how to make an #EmbryoModel. Fritz Kahn on a text from Goethe’s Faust (Man is made. Faust II: If we wanted to brew a man.....) Man in Structure and function 1922

“Long ago it became evident that the key to every biological problem must finally be sought in the cell; for every living organism is, or at some time has been, a cell” EB Wilson The cell in development and heredity 3rd edition 1925 #CellsRUs #MasterBuilder #NotInOurGenes

These are definitely #MustRead manuscripts that hint at new features of what we could call #ManyCells biology.

These might have practical applications

The conclusions are significant and open up a new vista in our understanding of development and pattern formation, as well as experimental opportunites

The @arjunrajlab #preprint explores these phenomena and reveal the existence of what they call propensities of cells to occupy specific domains within the gastruloids that may be epigenetically maintained.

Whereas polyclonal gastruloids display many tissues spatially organized with little variability, sc gastruloids display phenotypic variability manifest in classes, each with a small number of fates some of which are not common in classic gastruloids.

A possibility is that these heterogeneities reflect transition states www.nature.com/articles/nrg... but these preprints, in particular www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1..., suggest

Today, St George’s day is Book Day #DiadelLibro in Spain, celebrated in a special way in Catalonia with a tradition of people giving each other a book and a rose

Thank you. My colleagues and I are pleased that we developed a system that works and that 11 years and over 100 papers #gastruloid papers later, what we felt in the final paragraph of the paper is coming along. There is now a community improving and learning from the system.

A white paper on Stem Cell Based Embryo Models #SCBEM #Innovation #Ethics #Policy, from the community to highlight the potential of this new area of research and its impact in #ReproBiology shorturl.at/dAWL2

Seen @TrainingVbc nice to link that to Mendel but actually is a thought expressed by Gustav Mahler about his music which, surprisingly, had a similar fate to the most famous peas in the world.

Sheep and pig #gastruloids, @IftachN: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... The accumulating knowledge of the relationship between #SCBEMs and #Embryos, allow us to learn about species similarities and differences in gastrulation and body plan elaboration.

Congratulations to all awardees of ISSCR Early Career Impact Award but specially to @nmoris.bsky.social and @nicolasrivron.bsky.social with many thanks for their efforts to navigate and shape the ethical issues associated with the emerging field of a #SCEmbryoModels #SCBEM

Thank you @dianapinheiro.bsky.social and @nicolasrivron.bsky.social for a wonderful visit to Vienna, IMP and IMBA. Great Science and a discussions. #DevCellBio #StemCells #EmbryoModels