Phillip Cleves

Registration is OPEN for the 2026 Santa Cruz Meeting on Developmental Biology!!! Please spread the word!

@mads100tist.bsky.social @socdevbio.bsky.social @bsdb.bsky.social @xenbase.bsky.social @isdb.bsky.social @devbiol.bsky.social @the-node.bsky.social

scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu

New preprint from our big collaborative evolution experiment in 9 whole lakes in Alaska, written by McGill grad student @lucaseckert.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
What happens if you put a mixture of multiple source populations together to complete & evolve in multiple new lakes?

New #GENETICS report from @pcleves.bsky.social et al. shows the use of a simple electroporation protocol to introduce various genetic constructs into Aiptasia zygotes, a small sea anemone and an emerging model to study coral biology. buff.ly/5aQpQ1S

The 2026 Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting website is LIVE!!! Go see the incredible list of scientists who will be speaking at the meeting next summer! (...and check the site early next year for info on registration and abstract submission.)

scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu

Epithelial cell extrusion underlies starvation-induced cell loss in a sea anemone Epithelia likely predate the last common animal ancestor, yet the evolutionary origin and environmental regulation of epithelial remodelling remain poorly understood. Here, we show that extensive, sta...

Beautiful work. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Nice congrats!

An endosymbiotic origin of the crimson pigment from the lac insect | PNAS Symbioses with microorganisms expand the genetic and metabolic repertoire of many insects. The lac insect Kerria lacca (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha) ...

www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

New paper from the lab. Molecular characterization of the symbiont-containing organelle with proteomics and reverse genetics in Aiptasia and coral.

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...

How do microbes become permanent partners? 🌊🔬🦠 Check out our new study published in Current Biology showing how cyanobacterial genomes evolve step-by-step into endosymbionts of diatoms. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
@currentbiology.bsky.social @mehrshmali.bsky.social

Before today, I would have never known it was possible to run DNA extractions and PCR without a lab. Who knew that a molecular bio bento box could facilitate bringing the lab into the field? I’m very excited to see how our hornwort Cyanobacteria community sequencing turns out later this week.

We're Hiring! Assistant Professor of Immunology and Molecular Medicine in MCB. Learn more and apply online:
aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05096

This surprisingly relaxing footage is from SIX MILES under the ocean – and it’s the deepest ecosystem yet discovered

Congrats!

This is figure 3, which shows amniote footprints.

A paper in Nature reports the discovery of fossilized claw prints thought to belong to an amniote on a slab of rock from Australia dated to about 356 million years ago, suggesting that the origin of amniotes is earlier than expected. go.nature.com/4jm5XTP #Paleosky 🧪

Molecular and Cell Biology of Symbiosis | Marine Biological Laboratory This is an immersive research-based course designed to teach basic concepts, open research questions, and facilitate state-of-the-art experimental approaches in symbiosis research.

It is happening again! Consider taking our course on the Molecular and Cell Biology of Symbiosis at
@MBLScience. We extended the deadline for
applications to Apr 14, 2025. www.mbl.edu/education/ad...

The Cleves Lab The Cleves Lab researches the molecular, cellular, and developmental basis of how intracellular beneficial microbes invade and persist in animal cells to form symbiosis. They use ecologically critical...

It’s live! Check out the Cleves Lab website and learn how the lab uses ecologically relevant cnidarian models to gain key insights into how microbial symbiosis and its breakdown impact animal biology and health, driving new coral conservation efforts. 🪸🎉

@pcleves.bsky.social
www.cleveslab.org

Save the date 📅: The PhD Summer School on Host-microbe Symbioses is taking place from 6-19 of July in Oeiras, Portugal.
Registration is opening soon!
Learn more 👉 gimm.idloom.events/phd-summer-s...

@gimmfoundation.bsky.social @moorefound.bsky.social
@crc1182.bsky.social #CIFAR #CBR

#protistsonsky

Neural crest of Xenopus embryos labelled with nuclear GFP

Lets put this back in the feed and see if there is anyone else who who'd like to be added.

We are getting your future grad students ready, and plan on writing a book one day…maybe.

go.bsky.app/RnHK313

I would love to be added

YouTube video by MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute) The allure of fluorescence in the ocean

A video we made at @mbarinews.bsky.social explaining some functions of #fluorescence in the ocean, and how #bioluminescence is different… but related.
🦑🧪🌊
m.youtube.com/watch?v=whbe...

Cytosolic bacterial pathogens activate TLR pathways in tumors that synergistically enhance STING agonist cancer therapies Intracellular bacterial pathogens are distinctive tools for fighting cancer, as they can proliferate in tumors and deliver therapeutic payloads to the…

I'm pumped to finally share our lab's first publication!
Microbiology and cancer are deeply intertwined, and this is our first foray into the cancer field. We asked: how do bacteria activate innate immunity in tumors to elicit anti-cancer responses?
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Thrilled to present our latest BioRXiv on brain/body interactions during defensive freezing behaviour! (www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...). You might think that a frozen animal has, well, frozen muscle activity, right? Wrong! Underneath the still surface of a fly, something in the legs is beating… 🧵

Last week I showed to MSc students this iconic movie of a #leukocyte chasing a #bacteria, just wait...

Version taken from a 16 mm video made by David Elliot Rogers @VanderbiltU in the 1950s !

(as @mag2art.bsky.social says "the Citizen Kane of #Microscopy)
#CellMigration @focalplane.bsky.social

Evolution and function of chromatin domains across the tree of life - Nature Structural & Molecular Biology Szalay et al. discuss cross-kingdom similarities and differences in 3D chromatin folding in relation to gene regulation, including in bacteria, archaea, mammals and plants. This comparison reveals cer...

🔺🔺🔺RED TRIANGLE ALERT 🔺🔺🔺
Ever wonder how #TADs compare across the tree of life?Look no further & read our Review!!!

Find out what genes & 3D chromatin can & can't do in Bacteria! Archeae! Yeast! Plants! Animals!

SMCs & RNA-Pol are the only thing they have in common
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Acrasis kona genome and developmental transcriptomes reveal deep origins of eukaryotic multicellular pathways - Nature Communications Acrasis kona is a solitary amoeba which builds a multicellular fruiting body, despite being a distant relative of other multicellular eukaryotes. This study analysed A. kona’s genome and developmental...

nature.com/articles/s41...
#protistsonsky

Estimated additive genetic variance organized by 143 traits. Colored ridges show the estimated additive genetic variance across 100 permutations for either MOA bQTL (green), bgSNPs (orange), and remaining genome SNPs (purple). Black symbols represent the mean estimated value across permutations. Traits arranged by bQTL mean variance estimates and color coded according to general trait groupings: vitamin E metabolites = navy blue, metabolites = purple, stalk strength = light blue, flowering time = gold, plant architecture = red, disease = green, tassel architecture = pink, ear architecture = orange, misc. = grey.

I still love this figure. Submitting revisions this week. SNPs in transcription factor binding sites (green) explain the majority of additive genetic variation for >70% of ~150 phenotypes (rows) in maize. See Alt for detailed figure legend. See www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... for more!

Join us at the Symbiosis course!
With @pcleves.bsky.social @scottnichols.bsky.social & others!