Malte Mederacke

How Do Snakes Get Their Colorful Stripes and Blotches? Comparing the genomes of snakes with distinct coloration patterns pinpointed the genetic variants that contribute to these intricate designs.

Our research on snake skin color patterning is featured in The Scientist! 🐍🎨

Athanasia Tzika explains how comparative genomics and CRISPR-Cas9 revealed the key role of specific genes in establishing corn snake skin color patterns.

🔗 www.the-scientist.com/how-do-snake...

Congrats to Nadja and the @tessmarraiblelabs.bsky.social. Check out their cool new work (featuring a small sketch I made)!

It was a lot of fun! Thanks for coming

Many thanks to the PhD students and postdocs at D-BSSE in Basel for hosting me in their seminar series — and to the PIs at the Biozentrum, University of Basel, for inspiring conversations. @bsse.ethz.ch @biozentrum.unibas.ch

🚨 Join us TODAY for two really exciting talks on the emergence of the fractal bronchial tree and tortoise/ crocodile head scale patterning!🚨
@rorylcooper.bsky.social

@maltemederacke.bsky.social

🚨 Join us tomorrow for two really exciting talks on the emergence of the fractal bronchial tree and tortoise/ crocodile head scale patterning!🚨 @rorylcooper.bsky.social @maltemederacke.bsky.social

Very happy to share our latest work extending iterative immunofluorescence to in toto imaging of early zebrafish embryos (3D-4i), integrated with a 3D-dedicated image analysis pipeline! 🐟🔬📊
Huge kudos to Max Hess for this PhD milestone! 💪
@lucaspelkmans.bsky.social shorturl.at/cO0u7
Let's zoom in!

I’ll be speaking about the mechanical development of crocodile and tortoise head scales next Wednesday at 4pm for the @tlmcambridge.bsky.social seminar series. Subscribe to the mailing list to hear more about my work, and that of @maltemederacke.bsky.social!

lists.cam.ac.uk/sympa/subscr...

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...

There are certainly worse crimes, but there really should be some sort of law against creating new image file formats

Out now: Simulating Organogenesis in #COMSOL: Tissue Patterning with Directed Cell Migration

We provide a detailed walkthrough of how to implement #DCM partial integro-differential equation models - enabling accessible simulations of tissue patterning and morphogenesis.

arxiv.org/pdf/2509.08930

Hello Bluesky: Long time listener, first time poster! Excited to share the first publication of my Ph.D. work studying the development of appendage shapes in @plosbiology.org! The zebrafish caudal fin is quite distinctive, and we examine the timing and mechanisms of how its shape might come to be!

Our paper "Morphogen gradients can convey position and time in growing tissues" is now out in Newton ‪@cp-newton.bsky.social‬

Quite fitting to see this novel idea that morphogen gradients not only encode position, but can also time & synchronise development over long distances out in a new journal.

Start-Shape-Stop: Cell communication mechanisms controlling organ size Accurate growth control is critical for the achievement of proportional organs during animal development and repair processes. Either extra or deficie…

Hot off the press!!! Proudly presenting our lab's new review on how do cells communicate to control organ size :) We focus specially on dynamic connections that operate at different timescales to regulate organ growth and morphogenesis. #devbio #SizeandShape www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

If you are interested how cell movement can generate beautiful patterns: check out out new preprint!

PhD Position - 3D Cell-Based Tissue Simulation Framework

Are you a C++ expert and interested in making 3D cell-based tissue simulations with #SimuCell3D ever more powerful? Please apply and join us as #Master student, #PhD student or #Post-Doc!!

jobs.ethz.ch/job/view/JOP...

jobs.ethz.ch/job/view/JOP...

x.com/DagmarIber/s...

The anti-neural role of BMP signaling is a side effect of its global function in dorsoventral patterning In Bilateria with centralized nervous systems (e.g. in vertebrates or arthropods), the minimum of the BMP signaling activity gradient defines the position of the central nervous system. BMP-dependent ...

The last part of @paulknabl.bsky.social 's PhD is now available at www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Paul showed that BMP signaling is active in the diffuse nervous system of the sea anemone Nematostella and the box jellyfish Tripedalia. Moreover, suppression of BMP signaling in Nematostella leads...

Sea anemone development challenges long-held views on the evolution of germ layer and body axis formation For over twenty years, scientists thought they had understood the role of β-catenin in early animal development. β-Catenin, a key molecular signal, was believed to have the same fundamental function a...

Sea anemone development challenges long-held views on the evolution of germ layer and body axis formation
A study by researchers at the Uni Vienna published in @naturecomms.bsky.social has uncovered a surprising difference in how β-catenin functions in sea anemones compared to other animals. #evosky

A whole-body atlas of BMP signaling activity in an adult sea anemone - BMC Biology Background BMP signaling is responsible for the second body axis patterning in Bilateria and in the bilaterally symmetric members of the bilaterian sister clade Cnidaria—corals and sea anemones. Howev...

Our atlas of BMP signaling activity in adult Nematostella is finally out! Fantastic, meticulous work and beautiful illustrations by @paulknabl.bsky.social
Thanks, @fwf-at.bsky.social for funding our work!
bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

Static morphogen scaling enables proportional growth in tissue growth model inspired by axolotl limb regeneration https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.14.638295v1

The evolution of shape diversity through the lens of physics—explored in our new paper! A fruitful collaboration between our lab @EMBL, Salbreux’s lab @unige & others, led by @BailleulRichar1—now independent at @ENS_ULM—& Nicolas Cuny. bit.ly/3WRqdEa

Pleased to share our latest review "Coordination of nephrogenesis with branching of the urinary collecting system, the vasculature and the nervous system"

authors.elsevier.com/a/1kXJ6Fzn7S...

Metabolic activities are selective modulators for individual segmentation clock processes - Nature Communications Metabolism has been considered an attractive candidate as a global modulator of the tempo of multiple developmental processes, including somite segmentation timing. Here they demonstrate that metaboli...

Latest from the lab!
I've been seeking the ultimate modulator that regulates the tempo of multiple developmental processes simultaneously, and metabolism has been an attractive candidate for such a global tempo modulator.
However, I was wrong. 1/
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We present a simple yet comprehensive model integrating multiple mechanical forces to guide lung development.

These principles operate during both development and disease, providing a dynamic framework to understand and predict lung remodeling processes.

👇Thread 🧵(9/9)

The emergence of the fractal bronchial tree https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.01.13.632436v1

Big parts of my PhD work is now out on bioRxiv!!
We look at how biophysical parameters shape the fractal lung during development and disease.

Go check it out:

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

How does an #embryo build an energy-efficient #fractal #lung in time for the first breath at birth? 🫁

Discover the mechanical forces shaping the bronchial tree in our latest preprint: #LungDevelopment #Mechanobiology

doi.org/10.1101/2025...

👇Thread 🧵(1/9)

well deserved, coolest and most beautiful paper in the last years!

Self-organized patterning of crocodile head scales by compressive folding - Nature Crocodile head scales self-organize through purely mechanical compressive skin folding rather than a patterning process controlled by gene interactions.

🎉 We're excited to share our new research in @nature.com ! We reveal that crocodile head scales self-organize through compressive folding of the skin - a mechanical twist on their development & evolution!
Please read & share 🐊🔬 @genevunige.bsky.social