Giulia Casal, PhD

Figure 1 showing the strategy to isolate nuclei from the brain including blood vessels and the epigenetic profiles of 6 major brain cell types.

Happy to share our latest work led by @kevincziegler.bsky.social and Aydan Askarova, examining cell type contributions of vascular cell types to dementia risk. Many thanks to the donors, and for support from @ukdri.ac.uk and @alzassociation.bsky.social.
www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

Can't believe it — my first‑author paper is out and my image graces the cover of @dev-journal.bsky.social 🎉

Here, we reveal how early developmental programs shape and maintain #zebrafish gill architecture throughout life
🔗 journals.biologists.com/dev/issue/15...

#FluorescenceFriday #LifelongDevSI

UCL Prize Lecture in Life and Medical Sciences 2025 The UCL Prize Lecture in Life and Medical Sciences is a prize awarded annually since 1997 to individuals who have excelled in these fields.

I will give the UCL Prize Lecture in Life and Medical Sciences. If you are in London on December 3, come say hello. Registration is required but free:
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ucl-prize-...

Huntington's disease successfully treated for first time One of the most devastating diseases finally has a treatment that can slow its progression and transform lives, tearful doctors tell BBC.

🧵 BREAKING: Gene therapy shows promise in slowing Huntington’s disease progression. A major milestone in neurodegenerative disease research. @uclqsion.bsky.social @ucl-hd.bsky.social
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Dorsal Vagal Complex: A cell atlas to guide research into appetite control
buff.ly/QY7ev03

This is why I love science

We are proud to present a Special Issue on Cancer Neuroscience, curated by editors Bennie Babayan & Ted Dobie. This issue offers a snapshot of the field through a collection of Perspectives, Reviews, and NeuroViews: cell.com/neuron/issue.... See below for details on the pieces:

Yesterday.. our #CLEM with Julia Gutjahr and Antal Rot was featured in the main Science webpage....☺️ Nice to see #correlativemicroscopy and #volumeEM up front and centre.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

It's a wrap. The Biannual ISRB Meeting has ended. Stay tuned this week as we reflect on exciting science, honour our Lifetime Achievement and Rising Star Awardees and reflect on all we have learnt about regeneration this past week. #ISRB2025

Courtney @courtneyl7a7.bsky.social has written a lovely piece on this wonderful community initiative we’ve been running for 5 years at UCL - have a read! And follow @biig-ucl.bsky.social !

Impaired capillary–venous drainage contributes to gliosis and demyelination in mouse white matter during aging - Nature Neuroscience How reduced blood flow plays a role in progressive white matter loss during aging and associated cognitive decline is unclear. Here the authors show that selective constriction and rarefaction of capi...

Another beautiful study by the lab of @andyshihlab.bsky.social published today in @natureportfolio.nature.com 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 #cerebrovascular #aging

@isrbio.bsky.social #isrb2025 has started and we had a great time at the pre-conference trainee meeting, organised by us, the monthly trainee meeting organisers (Salome Stierli, Grave Schulz, Matt Cherubino, Jackson Griffiths, Carlos Barradas Chacon) - none of them have bsky!

Tissue bending through localized BM growth or dissolution.

Alteration in tissue morphology by intrinsic stresses in an assembling BM network.

Branching morphogenesis driven by localized deposition of interstitial matrix.

Asymmetric tissue expansion through anisotropic BM remodeling.

Maybe it's time we rethink the idea that development is a cell centric process? In this beautiful review, María-del-Carmen and @stramerlab.bsky.social discussed how the ECM underlies and influences many morphogenesis processes from wing unfolding to mammary gland development.
doi.org/10.1016/j.cd...

Some beautiful Remak cells acquired on the new Hitachi TEM 🤩

I'm deeply honoured to receive the BACR/AstraZeneca Young Scientist Frank Rose Award in recognition of my cancer research.
Grateful to @thebacr.bsky.social @astra-zeneca.bsky.social ‬ #Mentors & #Colleagues whose support has shaped this journey.

My reflections👇
🔗 www.bacr.org.uk/news/2025-ba...

❤️Our July issue is out❤️Discover an Angiopoietin-TIE2-dependent circuit promoting venous malformations, complex disease modelling in cardiac organoids, regulation of cardiac homeostasis by methyonil tRNA synthetase, and more!

www.nature.com/natcardiovas...

Goodbye Alice!
Excited for the new one 👀

A logo of a volume EM "cube" of data on a stylised computer monitor with wires extending from the side. Text below reads "CCP-volumeEM - Collaborative Computational Project for Volume Electron Microscopy"

🚨 SAVE THE DATE 🚨
Inaugural CCP-volumeEM Community Meeting, 3rd November 2025 at @crick.ac.uk in London
"Towards a collaborative computational community for volume EM"
Timings: 12pm - 5.30pm, followed by networking reception

#volumeEM #BioImageAnalysis #VEM #CCPvolumeEM #CoSeC

man stands by PowerPoint slide sharing qr codes for a survey and mailing list for image analysis of volume EM data

Exciting next steps in #volumeEM data analysis! A way to remove the data bottleneck..🍾👏 #mmc2025

@ccp-volumeem.bsky.social @martinjones.bsky.social

🎉 Our study identifying the direct precursors of Merkel cells is now published in @dev-journal.bsky.social Thank you to our reviewers @reviewcommons.org and collaborators for helping us improve the manuscript. Check out these cell behaviors we visualized in #zebrafish skin. doi.org/10.1242/dev....

Integrins coordinate basal surface contraction and oriented cell growth to enable thickening of a curved epithelium During development, tissues undergo morphogenesis to achieve their final form. This process relies on coordinated cell shape changes, which have predo…

Delighted to share our latest work on the mechanisms of epithelial curvature and 3D morphogenesis ! Amazing work from newly graduated Dr @courtneyl7a7.bsky.social 🎉

@lmcb-ucl.bsky.social
@uclnews.bsky.social
@ucllifesciences.bsky.social

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Officially PhD! Feeling very lucky to have had such an amazing lab and experience! Thank you to my examiners @stevewilsonfish.bsky.social and Giles Hardingham @ukdri.ac.uk and obviously Alison!!!

New Faraday Fellowships for international applicants moving to the UK

Up to £4 million per researcher over 5-10 years

Fast-track option for mid-career researchers looking to relocate to the UK

How does tumour heterogeneity arise? How can we predict cancer cell plasticity? In 2 new studies, we trace #glioblastoma heterogeneity to a spatial cancer cell trajectory w. multimodal cell atlassing bit.ly/4mkrWgs & predict plasticity w. snRNA/ATAC+deep learning bit.ly/3FbI6Ic 🧵

Pretty amazing graphic to go with the @financialtimes.com article about the cost of Trump's attack on US science

NIH is HUGE!

www.ft.com/content/67fd...

Our May issue is now live!

www.nature.com/neuro/volume...

Activity-driven myelin sheath growth is mediated by mGluR5 - Nature Neuroscience Employing pharmacology, genetics and all-optical approaches in zebrafish, Braaker et al. find that neuronal activity influences the growth of myelin sheaths along axons by signaling through metabotrop...

For those who want a distraction and/ or are interested, here's the latest from the group, led by Phil Braaker

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Touch, Our Most Complex Sense, Is a Landscape of Cellular Sensors | Quanta Magazine Every soft caress of wind, searing burn and seismic rumble is detected by our skin’s tangle of touch sensors. David Ginty has spent his career cataloging the neurons beneath everyday sensations.

The feeling of a hug comes from the pressure and vibration of millions of nerve endings.

I’ve submitted but not quite done it yet! The viva is on 3rd of June at the @lmcb-ucl.bsky.social 😎 thank you so much for the cake 🫶🏻 @stellakouloulia.bsky.social & Delan who is still not on bluesky