Javier Apfeld

One of the great things about giving a lecture on Synthetic Biology is that I get to use this meme from @synbio1.bsky.social

Many folks here know Eero (Simoncelli) - how many know about his sister Tania? She contributed to the remarkable effort of stopping this nonsense as an ACLU science advisor. (Now she facilitates the search of cures for rare diseases at CZI). Inspiring!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tania_S...

We talked about it yesterday on our Genomics lecture! <15 employees, not covered; or if they find out accidentally, oh well; also life insurance, good luck with that!

There was an audible gasp in my Genetics and Molecular Biology class today when I told students that until just over a decade ago, in the US, a company could patent the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes and prevent others from giving you information about your own DNA.

C. elegans flavin-containing monooxygenase-4 is essential for osmoregulation in hypotonic stress - PubMed Studies in Caenorhabditis elegans have revealed osmoregulatory systems engaged when worms experience hypertonic conditions, but less is known about measures employed when faced with hypotonic stress. Inactivation of fmo-4, which encodes flavin-containing monooxygenase-4, results in dramatic hypoosmo …

I could also be due to hypotonic stress. I think this is more likely, especially if the worms where floated in water. Here is a good reference to worms exploding in distilled water:

Age-associated vulval integrity is an important marker of nematode healthspan - PubMed Improving healthspan, defined as the period where organisms live without frailty and/or disease, is a major goal of biomedical research. While healthspan measures in people are relatively easy to identify, developing robust markers of healthspan in model organisms has proven challenging. Studies usi …

Here is a reference to what could be happening: Age-associated vulval integrity is an important marker of nematode healthspan

I am absolutely holding Fisher Scientific to what is printed on this order.

Congratulations Ahna!! ✨️🎉

Congrats Piali!!! 🎉✨️🪱

Thank you!!

Thanks Nick!!

Intelligent Imaging Innovations - Microscopist Intelligent Imaging Innovations

3i is hiring a Microscopist - repost & tell a friend!
Ideal candidate has experience in fundamental optical theory & familiarity with lightsheet, spinning disk, multiphoton, TIRF etc. Full-time, exempt position (travel to visit customers) offering a competitive salary & comprehensive benefits.

Congratulations to Irini Topalidou on her GSA Mentorship Award!

#celegans #womeninSTEM

@irinakitop.bsky.social

Congrats Irini!! ✨️🪱🎉

Thanks Navin!

Here's our paper showing that collagens contribute to the final shape of the reproductive system in C. elegans

doi.org/10.1016/j.ma...

Huge thanks to the MicroPublication Biology @micropub7n.bsky.social team for making it so easy (and genuinely pleasant) to publish the tools we built in the lab. /fin

Dante joined BlueSky just now!! Give him a follow @ashih-cd.bsky.social.

You can download Dante's Wormtrails from our lab's GitHub: github.com/ApfeldLab/wo...

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These visualizations can be genuinely beautiful.

Dante’s "Chemotaxis Explosion" won the microscopy award at the Worm Art Show at the 25th International Worm Meeting #worm25, and he received the award from Ahna Skop
@ahnaskop.bsky.social! 5/

Encoding recent movement history with Wormtrails makes spatial differences in C. elegans behavior much easier to see. In this assay, worms not only avoid the hydrogen peroxide gradient on the left, but also move faster near it. 4/

The right visualization can suggest the right question:

Are there multiple behavioral states (here, roaming and dwelling)?

Does behavior change with location (for example, at the edge of the bacterial lawn)? 3/

Wormtrails doesn’t replace C. elegans tracking and quantification. It complements them by focusing on the step we often skip in behavior analysis: exploratory visualization.

Before we reduce everything to numbers, we want to see what’s actually happening. 2/

In Gjon Mili’s photographs of Pablo Picasso drawing with light, you see the figure because the camera integrates time.

Inspired by long-exposure photography, Dante Ashih, an undergraduate in my lab, built the Wormtrails Python package to make it easier to see recent C. elegans behavior.

Thread. 1/

It is so much fun putting together a BlueSky explainer for our latest paper.

What does Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase have to do with C. elegans behavior? Stay tuned!

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Today in my Genetics & Molecular Biology class we talked about the French Resistance during World War II, the Terminator movies, and the mechanisms that induce and repress gene expression in bacteria.

Justify and hyphenate, this is the way.

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We in the C. elegans community are lucky to have the #wormfeed. Big shout out to @microbeminded.bsky.social for creating such a wonderful gathering place.

And you can pin the wormfeed to your homescreen: bsky.app/profile/did:...

I just want to shout out @somssich.bsky.social for making the lovely set of #PlantScience feeds––I think he's one of the reasons we have such good engagement in our particular 🌱community here.