Edan Foley

@edanfoley

Studying zebrafish intestinal biology at the University of Bath with an interest in sex and mucosal immunity. Trying to import the oxford comma to Britain. she/her 🐠 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ 🎶

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Edan Foley@edanfoley· 5d

I still pinch myself that this is part of my walk home from work every day 😍

Photo of the Pulteney bridge, a Ponte Veccio style Georgian bridge over the Avon in Bath. The bridge is constructed from a warm honey toned limestone that was quarried locally. In this photo the bridge casts a serene reflection on the still waters of the river

Edan Foley@edanfoley· 11d

thanks! we find the lcp1 antibody works very well too. To look at macrophages, we used anti-GFP on sections from mpeg:gfp fish and that worked reasonably well (at least in adults)

Edan Foley@edanfoley· 11d

I looooove this #FluorescenceFriday fish gut! lipid-laden lumen fluorescing in white, while magenta-coloured phagocytes occupy regular intervals at the ventral surface of the gut 😍

Edan Foley@edanfoley· 12d

Every scientist gets how deeply satisfying this message is.

Screenshot of a section of text that says "You have 1 word remaining"

Edan Foley@edanfoley· 13d

Important update to lab mascot, Flish. She is now blowing bubbles to clarify that she spends some of her life underwater!

Yikes. This Frankenstein piece of art has the body and fins of a fish, combined with the legs and head of a fly. Flish is comfortably blowing bubbles while chewing down on a heart meal of commensal bacteria.

Edan Foley@edanfoley· 13d

A short but compelling insight into the decades long abuse and torture of young pregnant women by the Catholic Church and the Irish state

Cover of the book small things like these by Claire Keegan

Edan Foley@edanfoley· 15d

Last week, we finished an intense but very enjoyable EMBO microbiome workshop. It was great working with such an engaged group of trainees and instructors and I’m glad to have had the opportunity to participate!

Three scientists in lab coats recreating the ultimate lab stock photo 😀

Edan Foley@edanfoley· 18d

This #FluorescenceFriday image of fish intestinal villi feels like an important step into the future for our new lab in Bath. Thanks to Cora, we captured proliferating cells (in cyan) and blood cells (in magenta) in a single image for the first time!

image of the villi of an adult fish gut. nuclei are labeled in blue. Proliferating cells at the base of each fold are visible in cyan and we can see blood cells regularly dispersed throughout the gut in magenta.

Edan Foley@edanfoley· 23d

Gosh I love this place

Photo of a woman resting against a wall. Behind her is a large pastoral scene with white clouds against a blue sky

Edan Foley@edanfoley· 25d

Nic Janto served up this delight for #FluorescenceFriday A fish gut where he visualised all the associated leukocytes in magenta. I always find it so striking to see how blood cells patrol and occasionally integrate within the gut epithelium.

Sagittal section of an adult zebrafish gut. In this gut, two villi are visible projecting into the lumen of the intestine. The nucleus of each cell is visible in cyan oulting the distinct morphology of the gut. Within the villi, blood cells are labeled in magenta. Most are seen below the epithelium, patrolling the gut, but others can be seen integrating themselves within the epithelium, allowing direct access to the lumen.

Edan Foley@edanfoley· 27d

Celebrating Mac and cheese day the way the founders intended

A dish with Mac and cheese and a large plastic spoon

Edan Foley@edanfoley· Jul 10

Fabulous #FluorescenceFriday fish: a five day old larva with magenta labeled phagocytes patrolling the intestine and swim bladder. Visual wizardry by Mckenna (who's currently representing the lab at the IZFS meeting in Vienna!)

Edan Foley@edanfoley· Jul 4

You can only live in Bath for so long before the inevitable happens…

The picture shows the front cover of the book Emma by James Austen. The cover is richly decorated with floral patterns

Edan Foley@edanfoley· Jul 3

This week's #FluorescenceFriday may be blurry, but it's no less fabulous! Our first ever transgenic fish in Bath 💃. Credit to Cora for capturing this perfect moment of science joy!

blurry image of a very young developing embryo sitting on top of a nutritious ball of yolk that it will slowly digest in the coming days. In this image, sections of the embryo glow green thanks to the expression of a fluorescent reporter protein that indicates successful generation of a transgenic fish.

Edan Foley@edanfoley· Jul 2

Take a doomscrolling break to enjoy this movie of a zebrafish gut digesting a fluorescently labeled lipid-rich diet 🤩

Edan Foley@edanfoley· Jul 1

This is stunning!! 554 sections through a larval zebrafish eye, reconstructed so that you're inside the eye looking out into the world 🤩. Literally a fisheye perspective!

Fluorescence image of a zebrafish eye. Retinal cells express a red fluorescent protein that we have false coloured in magenta. In this three dimensional reconstruction, you are inside the eye, looking directly through the lens into the outside world.

Edan Foley@edanfoley· Jun 26

I'll start taking AI more seriously when it realises that the best heatmap colors come from pigeons.

photograph of a standard wood piegon. with teal and magenta neck colors that were used to pick heatmap gradient colors.

Edan Foley@edanfoley· Jun 25

My lab gets me

Illustration of a slightly judgmental looking fish saying “please take me off your mailing list”

Edan Foley@edanfoley· Jun 24

Happy Cat World Domination Day to those that celebrate

Photograph of a BBC News report. The report shows a photo of a cat with a stripped back and white chest. Below the cat the chyron reader “BBC NEWS BREAKING. New Prime Minister

Edan Foley@edanfoley· Jun 22

So what's driving the decline? Well it looks like, some pretty miserable handling of asylum, intersex bodily integrity, and legal gender recognition.

Edan Foley@edanfoley· Jun 22

Here's the same map for 2026. Some countries improved (you go, Ireland!). Many held the same (well done Belgium!). But the UK has visibly cratered to the point that they're one of the worst in Western Europe.

Edan Foley@edanfoley· Jun 22

Here's the map for 2016. You can see the UK doing really well, coming in second best to Belgium by a single percentage point.

Edan Foley@edanfoley· Jun 19

#FluorescenceFriday fish fabulousness by Mckenna. Moving is kinda scary, but my word, seeing gorgeous magenta fluorescent phagocytes decorate a fish gut in your new lab makes it worthwhile!

Brightfield image a larval fish. The intestine runs the entire ventral margin of the larva. In this image, phagocytes express a fluorescent reporter that we have labeled magenta. You can see the entire gut is decorated by these sentinel cells, including ones that have started to penetrate the intestinal epithelium.

Edan Foley@edanfoley· Jun 19

Be still my beating heart. Another mini milestone for the lab - we now have adult fish!

This image shows seven adult zebrafish from different angles swimming in a tank. The central adult is staring quizzically at the camera with a facial expression that seems to suggest annoyance that we captured the image before she got to do her hair and makeup.

Edan Foley@edanfoley· Jun 17

We may have blinded the experiment, but the labels understood the assignment 💅

Superplot showing normalised counts for two treatment labeled "Elle" and "Vivan"

Edan Foley@edanfoley· Jun 7

Pollinators hard at work in Bath!!

These are four portrait photos of different pollinators at work on a gray overcast day in bath

Edan Foley@edanfoley· Jun 6

the cat may be shedding just a little

Picture of a pair of sienna pants covered in the shed white hairs of a little cat. A hairless silhouette is visible in the lap where the cat sat.

Edan Foley@edanfoley· Jun 5

#FluorescenceFriday fabulous served by Mckenna. A fish gut with nuclei in blue, phagocytes in red, and f-actin in white 🤩. I love the organised chaos of the apical brush borders at the luminal interface, while macrophages stubbornly cling to the basal surface.

image of a larval fish gut showing each cell nucleus as a blue dot. In this image, filamentous actin labels the brush border white, revealing a continuous digestive tube surrounded by a dense community of epithelial cells. Phagocytes are visible as red cells clinging to surface of the gut, where they sense microbes and contribute to defense responses.

Edan Foley@edanfoley· Jun 3

When the light sends rainbows, you celebrate

$Selfie in a black top with refracted light casting a rainbow in my hair 😀$

Edan Foley@edanfoley· Jun 3

Everyone once in a while you do some computer archeology and end up coming across old friends, like this IHC image of blood cells in the gut of an adult fish. I remember seeing these cells pushing their way into the epithelium, and thinking "look at you little heroes"