Akankshi Munjal

Wonderful to be part of exciting Program at Harvard University & CMSA, Mathematics &Biology: Morphometry, Morphogenesis and Mathematics. Thank you 🙏🏼 and congrats to organizers for their invitation. Great to see and discuss with wonderful colleagues, not least @akankshi.bsky.social! 🤩

Amazing work by amazing colleagues!

Lipid-mediated reinforcement of FGF/MAPK signaling enables robust otic placode specification The formation of cranial placodes requires groups of ectodermal cells to interpret inductive signals in a robust and organized manner, yet how signaling responses are coordinated across a developing f...

I’m thrilled to share the first preprint from the Piacentino Lab @hopkinsmedicine.bsky.social! We show that developing inner ear requires a secreted lipid chaperone, APOD, working in a positive feedback loop to amplify FGF/MAPK signaling. 👂 #DevBio Check it out! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Excited to share Alison's @alisonkickuth.bsky.social paper from the lab out in @nature.com this week! We uncovered how a mechanical ratchet mechanism drives cytokinesis in early #zebrafish embryos. Read more in this thread 🧵 and at www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🤩
@poldresden.bsky.social @mpi-cbg.de

Advanced grad students + postdocs: apply for the 2026 #kitpqbio summer course, "Physical Principles of Morphogenesis in Plants and Animals," at buff.ly/OXXMKEv. Apply by Feb. 1.
Course directors Adrienne Roeder (Cornell) and Sebastian Streichan (UCSB)

SAVE THE DATE! Stoked to organize the 2026 Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting with @rashmi-priya.bsky.social, @lowelab.bsky.social, and Shelbi Russell. Come learn about Biomedicine, Biomechanics, and the Biosphere, August 24-28, 2026. Registration dates, etc., coming soon! Please RT

YouTube video by John Rawls Zebrafish in the wild

Part 6: For decades, the zebrafish has helped scientists unlock the mysteries of genetics, development, & disease. But the fish that power most discoveries have spent generations inside lab tanks. This video captures footage of zebrafish in their natural environment in Nepal.
youtu.be/cCZhZpPALqw

Join us in one of the most supportive and collaborative departments, led by an equally supportive chair!

Excited to start my first day as a postdoc in @akankshi.bsky.social's lab! Seeking to understand quantitatively how a living organism can reproducibly form a complex topological structure from simple initial conditions, and what implications this may have for its behavioral function.

Induction of menstruation in mice reveals the regulation of menstrual shedding During menstruation, an inner layer of the endometrium is selectively shed, while an outer, progenitor-containing layer is preserved to support repeated regeneration. Progress in understanding this co...

I’m thrilled to share my postdoc work and the first paper from the McKinley Lab! 🎉
@karalmckinley.bsky.social
We built the first transgenic model of menstruation in mice.
We used it to uncover how the endometrium organizes and sheds during menstruation. 🧪
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧵

Very sad news, John Gurdon has died.

A developmental biologist's developmental biologist, Nobel prize winner

His work is the foundation of much of today's dev & stem cell bio.

An inspiration to many, including me. Always asking questions & wanting the answers

www.magd.cam.ac.uk/news/profess...

New preprint from the lab! We discovered a transient fluidization in the basal region of human forebrains by tracking microdroplets in cerebral organoids.This “basal fluidization”, absent in gorilla and mouse, may contribute to greater surface expansion in human forebrains
1/
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

🧠 Join us @uzh-ch.bsky.social ! We are a new lab looking for PhDs, Postdocs & Master’s students interested in studying how human neural systems emerge & go awry using brain organoids, light-sheet imaging & genomics. 🚀 Deadline for LSZGS 1st Nov! www.lifescience-graduateschool.uzh.ch/en.html.

If you’re applying to your dream lab for an internship/PhD/postdoc, always send a second email 1-2 weeks after the first one if you don’t hear back.

I promise we will be grateful rather than annoyed. My email inbox is a disaster and I’m quite junior - and very few of us have secretarial support

What. A. Thread. Beautiful work! Congratulations.

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 🧵

See this? This = implanting mouse embryo. Usually this happens inside its mother and is invisible to us, but we can actually watch implantation ex vivo with the hope of understanding why implantation goes awry in embryos of older women. A 🧵...

Congratulations. I can't stop watching these timelapses!

Led by the very talented @yusuke-mori.bsky.social and beautiful theory by Paul Robin– another wonderful collab with @ehannezo.bsky.social

Our latest preprint! Into morphogenesis, Yap, ECM, signaling, vertex models, feedbacks/robustness? There is something here for everyone. We discovered a positive feedback loop that extends inner ear canals, and a built-in mechanism that shuts it down when morphogenesis is done. tinyurl.com/464wsjhd

Tissue 'tectonic' collision is detrimental, but flies found two distinct solutions! Gratifying and grateful to be included in this collective effort, w/ Steffen Lemke, to crack the (or 'a') code of #cephalicfurrow, now out in @nature.com, all with @paveltomancak.bsky.social at the helm. (1/9)

Jim Hudspeth: The beautiful, mysterious science of how you hear Have you ever wondered how your ears work? In this delightful and fascinating talk, biophysicist Jim Hudspeth demonstrates the wonderfully simple yet astonishingly powerful mechanics of hair cells, th...

Jim Hudspeth has died 💔

I am so sad. He was probably my favorite hearing researcher of all time. Absolute genius and also generous - he spent hours on the phone advising me on my career even tho we barely knew each other.

May his memory be a blessing.
www.ted.com/talks/jim_hu...

So happy for Kira! She also received NOA for her F32.

This summer's hot ticket: Arolla 2025 meeting "BioMatter - From cytoskeleton to embryo", taking place from 25.08. - 29.08.2025 at Grand Hotel & Kurhaus, Arolla.

‼️ Submit your abstract until the 1st of June and join in: meetings.ls2.ch/arolla2025

❗ Special rates for LS2 members! ❗

This postdoc position is still open! Apply if you want to come work with us on asymmetric cell divisions in spiralian embryos! postdocs.stanford.edu/prospective/...

Morphodynamics of human early brain organoid development - Nature Human brain morphodynamics are explored using organoids.

Opus magnum of my former #PhD student @akanksha-jain.bsky.social. She brought the power of #lightsheet imaging to the #Treutlein lab. #Organoids #singlecells #bigdata #imageanalysis You have learned much #Akanksha. You are a #JEDI now. ❤️👏

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

Don't miss the latest news, jobs and research from the #zebrafish community!

Also available as a blog post: thenode.biologists.com/daniodigest-...

Great dinner with current and former members of the lab, as well as current and former Duke members and friends of the lab. Great to catch up with @ceriweber.bsky.social ,Ben, @woonyunghur.bsky.social and share stories. Great @socdevbio.bsky.social meeting!

Congrats @akanksha-jain.bsky.social . Beautiful work and imaging!