Javier Apfeld

Molecular & Cellular Physiology (MCP) Monday

We are recruiting a tenure-track assistant professor to join the Dept of Molecular & Cellular Physiology at Stanford. Apply to be our colleague 1/n
facultypositions.stanford.edu/en-us/job/49...

TT faculty job opening in #Neuroscience!
We are looking for a colleague to join us in our fantastic Biology Department and Neuroscience Program at Brandeis. We are a group of *very* collaborative, supportive, and productive scientists (& humans!) so please apply
academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30961

Despite the mess, we are grateful to be funded, have exciting science happening, and have an opening for a postdoc!

If you are interested in sensory biology and esp in cilia, thermosensation, or interoception, and would like to join an interactive & supportive group - please email.

Please RT 🙏

The plates have mites.

Another Friday is here! Bring your recommendations for interesting papers! 😍

I you have any duplicates of an original Benner or Sulston paper, I'd love to get one 🙋‍♂️🪱😍

Are you an early career scientist who wants to get specialist training in C. elegans model for your laboratory research? we co-organize again the EMBO C. elegans course! Do not miss applying!

Saturday morning, waiting for kid's soccer game, is a great time to indulge in the lowest form of humor:

LAB HAIKU!

1.
Does anyone know
whose PCR is in there?
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Working with C. elegans This channel provides clear demonstrations of core C. elegans lab skills, including: recognizing life stages and common phenotypes, picking and manipulating worms, and maintaining healthy cultures. De...

Hi fellow C. elegans scientists, I've made a few videos that may be of use for new trainees working in worm labs. Hoping to add more in the future, but figured I'd share this resource as is in case it's helpful :)
www.youtube.com/@Workingwith...

"Jane Goodall showed us what a life in science could look like: rigorous discovery paired with fierce advocacy for what you study. She gave the world six decades of groundbreaking research on chimpanzees and their habitats, then turned that knowledge into a global movement for conservation." (1/2)

Congrats Nick, Jeremy, and the whole team! 🎉✨️🪱

A picture of a chimpanzee looking up and to the right

RIP Jane Goodall.

Sharing this photo of Skosha, one of the chimpanzees she studied. I took this photo in Gombe Stream, Tanzania, in November 2000.

#goodall #photography

Worm peeps: nominate a newly minted PhD for the Sydney Brenner Thesis Award! #celegans

Very much so! And beautiful work too.

Wowza! I am so happy the thread was useful!

Got to love studies that were clearly conducted "for the love of the game" (“self-decapitating sea slugs”, “plants that see and use that for mimicry”, “worms that jump in the air”, aka papers you sometimes find in @currentbiology.bsky.social
) References to all of this bellow👇

The seeds for the new cures that will suddenly surprise and inspire us decades from now are being planted by today's basic scientists.

This is why it is so important that funding agencies like #NIH and #NSF continue their long-term commitment to supporting basic science. /fin

Lin-4 is just one of the many seeds (whose stories I don't know as well) planted by basic scientists long ago, that grew into a piece of today's breakthrough therapy for Huntington's. 4/n

Solving this enigma lead to the discovery that a tiny RNA binds to the untranslated region of a messenger RNA to regulate its activity.

This remained a novelty for many years, but later became the first example a widespread and conserved way in which organisms regulate gene expression. 3/n

Case in point: today's microRNA therapy lowering the expression of a Huntington's-causing gene variant traces back to what what in the early 90s was an obscure enigma to basic scientists trying to understand why certain patterns of cell division occur at specific larval stages in a tiny worm 2/n

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.

New cures feel sudden, but the seeds were planted decades ago by basic scientists.

Which seeds will turn into cures? Unpredictable looking forward, a straight line looking back. 🧪🧬 🧵

C. elegans is a real animal and we set out to understand how it comes to have its distinctive biogeography. Its ancestral center of diversity is in the higher elevation forests of Hawaii. Its closest relatives are spread across east Asia. Did they travel from Asia? [Preprint 🧵]

Gut epithelium modifies enteric behaviors during nutritional adversity via distinct peptidergic signaling axes Gut epithelium modulates output from distinct enteric circuits by altering secretion of insulin and noninsulin peptides.

Very excited to share this finding from my postdoctoral work that is now published in #ScienceAdvances. We show how the gut’s epithelium modifies enteric behaviors during nutritional adversity via distinct peptidergic signaling axes.

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

Thread ⬇️

(1/n)

Congrats Surojit and the whole team! The enteric nervous system is so interesting! I am very much looking forward to reading the paper.

What movie do you consider "perfect"?

Congrats Needhi! Wonderful news! ✨️🪱🎉

Upcoming Events —> You can add yourself to the Ig Events mailing list. September 18, 2025, 6:00 pm, Thursday 35th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, at Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts, USA — TICKE…

I am on their mailing list 😀

Ig Nobel MC

Paper airplanes at Ig Nobel ceremony

Ig Nobel prize for Biology

Ig Nobel opera about digestion

I had a great time at the #IgNobel prize ceremony!

And what a show! Paper airplanes, an opera about digestion, all celebrating achievements that first make you laugh and then think.

Congrats Callista! ✨️🪱🎉

a bunch of clocks are hanging on a wall including one that says ' 3:00 ' on it ALT: a bunch of clocks are hanging on a wall including one that says ' 3:00 ' on it

New preprint!

How are developmental cycles coordinated across cell types?

It turns out that, like Geppetto's cuckoo clocks in the GIF below, individual cell types are each performing their own little crazy routine, but all in sync with each other.