Picture of #LifelongDevSI Guest Editor Mansi Srivastava taken in an office with a whiteboard and sunny window. Mansi is wearing a white shirt and a flower pendant necklace with colourful petals
Mansi Srivastava is a Guest Editor for our Special Issue on Lifelong Development #LifelongDevSI. In this interview, Mansi talks about her research path, the links between regeneration and development and the exciting questions her lab is trying to answer.
journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...
16.10.2025 16:45 โ ๐ 18 ๐ 4 ๐ฌ 0 ๐ 0
congratulations @xgrau.bsky.social @arnausebe.bsky.social and the rest of the authors!
16.10.2025 12:02 โ ๐ 2 ๐ 0 ๐ฌ 1 ๐ 0
Latest from ours: www.cell.com/cell-reports...
This is two stories in one: a case study/cautionary tale on developing genetic tools in new organisms, and the first hint at a gene regulatory network for choanoflagellate multicellular development (which turn out to involve a Hippo/YAP/ECM loop!) A ๐งต
05.10.2025 10:35 โ ๐ 240 ๐ 100 ๐ฌ 10 ๐ 10
Really grateful to see our work featured by @quantamagazine.bsky.social in this piece on the evolution of genome regulation. Huge thanks to @philipcball.bsky.social for such a beautifully written article.
08.10.2025 20:49 โ ๐ 36 ๐ 18 ๐ฌ 2 ๐ 0
Happy to share the Biodiversity Cell Atlas white paper, out today in @nature.com. We look at the possibilities, challenges, and potential impacts of molecularly mapping cells across the tree of life.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
24.09.2025 15:12 โ ๐ 220 ๐ 106 ๐ฌ 3 ๐ 10
Congratulations, amazing work! I remember when you explained to me the TF/motif strategy in the Sevilla meeting. I'm happy it worked well!
14.07.2025 09:44 โ ๐ 0 ๐ 0 ๐ฌ 0 ๐ 0
Decoding cnidarian cell type gene regulation
Animal cell types are defined by differential access to genomic information, a process orchestrated by the combinatorial activity of transcription factors that bind to cis -regulatory elements (CREs) to control gene expression. However, the regulatory logic and specific gene networks that define cell identities remain poorly resolved across the animal tree of life. As early-branching metazoans, cnidarians can offer insights into the early evolution of cell type-specific genome regulation. Here, we profiled chromatin accessibility in 60,000 cells from whole adults and gastrula-stage embryos of the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis. We identified 112,728 CREs and quantified their activity across cell types, revealing pervasive combinatorial enhancer usage and distinct promoter architectures. To decode the underlying regulatory grammar, we trained sequence-based models predicting CRE accessibility and used these models to infer ontogenetic relationships among cell types. By integrating sequence motifs, transcription factor expression, and CRE accessibility, we systematically reconstructed the gene regulatory networks that define cnidarian cell types. Our results reveal the regulatory complexity underlying cell differentiation in a morphologically simple animal and highlight conserved principles in animal gene regulation. This work provides a foundation for comparative regulatory genomics to understand the evolutionary emergence of animal cell type diversity. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. European Research Council, https://ror.org/0472cxd90, ERC-StG 851647 Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaciรณn, https://ror.org/05r0vyz12, PID2021-124757NB-I00, FPI Severo Ochoa PhD fellowship European Union, https://ror.org/019w4f821, Marie Skลodowska-Curie INTREPiD co-fund agreement 75442, Marie Skลodowska-Curie grant agreement 101031767
I am very happy to have posted my first bioRxiv preprint. A long time in the making - and still adding a few final touches to it - but we're excited to finally have it out there in the wild:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Read below for a few highlights...
06.07.2025 18:14 โ ๐ 59 ๐ 24 ๐ฌ 1 ๐ 2
A single-cell ATACseq atlas of our favourite sea anemone, Nematostella vectensis! By @aelek.bsky.social @martaig.bsky.social
04.07.2025 10:27 โ ๐ 28 ๐ 12 ๐ฌ 1 ๐ 0
Congratulations to the new PhD at #CABD: Marta Moreno Oรฑate!
Dr. Moreno did an amazing job explaining the projects of her PhD work! Marta's thesis was done with @pablodeolavide.upo.esโs PhD program and was co-supervised by @martinfranke.bsky.social and Juan Tena!
01.07.2025 15:37 โ ๐ 3 ๐ 1 ๐ฌ 1 ๐ 1
I am very proud of you, Marta. You did outstanding work in the lab, and your defence was spotless. I am also very happy to now know an expert in gene compensation between paralogous genes!
02.07.2025 09:32 โ ๐ 2 ๐ 2 ๐ฌ 0 ๐ 0
Decoding cnidarian cell type gene regulation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.01.662323v1
03.07.2025 13:33 โ ๐ 5 ๐ 3 ๐ฌ 0 ๐ 1
And, if it turns out these long computation times are not due to lack of parallelisation, then there is something very strange going on that should be investigated. Functions like FindVariableFeatures, ScaleData, and others, are now reported to take several hours for 10K~30K cells datasets.
26.06.2025 15:45 โ ๐ 1 ๐ 0 ๐ฌ 0 ๐ 0
What is the current status of parallelisation support in Seurat? It was dropped last year with v5 and so far nothing has changed. It is not good that multiple people are reporting very slow runtimes (myself included).
github.com/satijalab/se...
github.com/satijalab/se...
github.com/satijalab/se...
26.06.2025 15:42 โ ๐ 1 ๐ 0 ๐ฌ 1 ๐ 0
Proud to present the peer-reviewed version of our Cell Type Allometry paper, out today in Science Advances!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Are animals of different sizes made of the same cell types?
Hereโs an update of the main points and revision items
(with memes!)
Thread ๐๐งต
07.05.2025 19:01 โ ๐ 94 ๐ 35 ๐ฌ 6 ๐ 3
Lungfish xkcd.com/3064
17.03.2025 16:53 โ ๐ 11975 ๐ 1316 ๐ฌ 98 ๐ 88
Y'all so excited to build this world lol
17.03.2025 22:57 โ ๐ 34 ๐ 7 ๐ฌ 2 ๐ 0
Oxford historian faces deportation from UK after doing research on India โฆ in India
Home Office told Manikarnika Dutta to quit Britain for spending too many days abroad for study
This. A thousand times this.
"If the UK genuinely seeks to position itself as a global leader in academia and innovation, it must foster an environment that is welcoming to top talent."
16.03.2025 08:54 โ ๐ 25 ๐ 9 ๐ฌ 0 ๐ 0
Homepage - openRxiv
openRxiv is an independent non-profit, the new organizational home for bioRxiv and medRxiv, enabling researchers to instantly share groundbreaking findings with the global scientific community.
Big news: we are setting up a new non-profit organization to run bioRxiv and medRxiv. It's called openRxiv [no it's not a new preprint server; it's dedicated organization to oversee the servers] openrxiv.org 1/n
11.03.2025 13:20 โ ๐ 2571 ๐ 849 ๐ฌ 55 ๐ 42
23/46 This contrasts with the view that polyploidy is unstable and transient, and shows that sustained environmental selection can maintain polyploidy, even without evolving genome-stabilizing mutations.
05.03.2025 22:59 โ ๐ 4 ๐ 1 ๐ฌ 1 ๐ 0
Small, perky snail with head poking out between its two shells. The snail has a pair of long, tubular tentacles. The shells are like clam shells, except they are vivid green. The hinge is at the top.
Julia exquisita: Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands. ยฉ uwkwaj CC BY-NC https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/166680082
In this photo, the snail is lying on its side with the hinge of the two shells pointing towards the camera. The shell and snail are both very bright green. The snail has white blotches on its back.
Julia exquisita: Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands. ยฉ uwkwaj CC BY-NC https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/263219540
Weโve looked at snails with one shell and slugs with no shells. Now letโs have a look at a snail with two shells, because Nature laughs at our puny attempts to pigeonhole.
In todayโs #AtoZ โ J is for Julia (Juliidae) (1/9)
Pic: ยฉ uwkwaj CC BY-NC
10.03.2025 02:39 โ ๐ 859 ๐ 284 ๐ฌ 22 ๐ 48
This will be a wonderful conference - come discuss the origin of metazoans and enjoy fruits de mer with us in Roscoff!
08.01.2025 10:05 โ ๐ 15 ๐ 5 ๐ฌ 0 ๐ 0
Scientists need more time to think
Good piece by @natureportfolio.bsky.social. The erosion of thinking timeโdriven by admin, bureaucracy, industry agendas, and unrealistic output targetsโstifles curiosity-led science. These pressures undermine innovation and the intellectual freedom vital for real progress. ๐งช๐ฑ๐ #ScienceIsNotBusiness
26.12.2024 14:52 โ ๐ 380 ๐ 116 ๐ฌ 14 ๐ 10
congratulations Omaya! Well deserved!
21.12.2024 19:43 โ ๐ 4 ๐ 0 ๐ฌ 0 ๐ 0
Postdoctoral researcher in the Sebe-Pedros and Marti-Renom Labs at CRG. Transposable elements enthusiast, passionate about piRNAs, 3D genomes, and Star Trek ๐
Evolutionary biologist exploring the molecular mechanisms behind life's complexity. Currently @International University of Catalonia (UIC), Barcelona.
Theoretical Physicist.
(She/her/hers)
From Eastern KY.
Aging and cancer stem cell heterogeneity - ICREA research professor - Quantitative Stem Cell Dynamics lab
at IRB Barcelona ๐ฆ๐ท๐ช๐บ๐บ๐ธ fraticellilab.com
The Epigenetic Face of Cancer Metabolism Lab
We study NUCLEAR METABOLISM at CRG, Barcelona
https://sdelcilab.crg.eu/
Asst Professor, School of Biomedical Engineering, UBC; stem cell engineer and synthetic biologist with a passion for science outreach and communication.
https://shakiba.bme.ubc.ca/
I am a cell and developmental biologist at the Living Systems Institute (LSI) in Exeter. We work on spreading Wnt signals and characterising cytonemes in zebrafish embryos, human neurons, and cancer using high-res imaging and mathematical modelling.
Agencia Estatal de Investigaciรณn de Espaรฑa. Fomentamos la investigaciรณn cientรญfica y tรฉcnica mediante la asignaciรณn de los recursos pรบblicos.
Paleontologist. Developmental Biologist. Anatomist. Polar wanderer. Telling people that they are fish since 2008.
2025 Schmidt Science Fellow
CDB UCL London and Gurdon Institute Cambridge
Wilson, Simons and Norden labs
Developmental, Systems and Synthetic Biology
Prev: Briscoe, Crick Institute; Zernicka-Goetz and Thomson, Caltech; Banerjee and Goehring, UCL
๐งฌ 3D genomics in evo-devo ๐ชฐ
๐งซ 3D'omics modeling @3domics.bsky.social
Bioinformatician @mamartirenom.bsky.social lab, CNAG, Barcelona
PhD student on leave in the Prof. Gelfand lab at Skoltech, Moscow
PhD student in the Sebรฉ-Pedrรณs lab at CRG.
Postdoc at the Department of Natural History, @universitetsmuseet.bsky.social, @unibergen.bsky.social | Interested in diversity, ecology and life cycles of Cnidaria and Ctenophora ๐ชผ๐ชธ|
Postdoc in the Sebรฉ-Pedrรณs lab at the CRG studying heterochromatin diversity and function across eukaryotes. Can be found chasing frisbees when not in the lab.
A bit of 3D gene regulation, single-cell omics and transgenic models.
Born and raised in the bay of Algeciras. Enjoying Science and Flamenco at CABD, Seville.
Lab website: https://lupianezlab.github.io/Website/
Email: dario.lupianez@csic.es
Postdoctoral researcher from ๐ง๐ท jointly based at Stowers and the Hopkins Marine Station at Stanford | genomics, embryos, worms, regeneration | USP, Butantan and Oxford alumnus | my opinions
phd student. bioinformatics. single cell technology. brain. aging. killifish.
PhD student interested in cell type evolution and stuff