Patrick Steinmetz

If you need to move things fast…

I am very excited to announce the opening of the submission site for the upcoming Conférences Jacques Monod on Developmental Biology, May 18-22, 2026 cjm.sb-roscoff.fr/en/conferenc...
@lionlchristiaen.bsky.social and I have an exciting program of speakers and slots for selected short talks, etc.

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...

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 🧵

@malinkjosavik.bsky.social was fantastic giving her first talk at a conference!

Fantastic presentation by @malinkjosavik.bsky.social at the Tutzing basal metazoan workshop 👏 She shared her work on starvation and metabolism in Nematostella, conducted in collaboration between the @prhsteinmetz.bsky.social lab and the Dept of Biomedicine @unibergen.bsky.social ✨

Gray's Anatomy illustration of a hand

How Did Hands Evolve? The Answer Is Behind You. (My story of some surprising evo-devo!) nyti.ms/42Cg8xH

hoxd13a reporter in a zebrafish larva

Are digits modified fins, or evolutionary innovations? Read how we tackled this old question from a new angle🧪
A story with @chasebolt.bsky.social, @homeobox.bsky.social and myself, coordinated by @denisduboule.bsky.social from @college-de-france.fr and published in @nature.com today!
#InHoxWeTrust

Flagellar gliding in choanoflagellates Freire-Delgado and Brunet discover a new mode of cell motility in choanoflagellates, the closest relatives of animals. Under mild confinement, choanoflagellate move over surfaces without cell deformat...

New short paper from our lab @currentbiology.bsky.social, in which we discover of a new mode of cell motility for choanoflagellates: flagellar gliding. www.cell.com/current-biol... - A 🧵

One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants - Nature In a case of obligate cross-species cloning, female ants of Messor ibericus need to clone males of Messor structor to obtain sperm for producing the worker caste, resulting in males from the same moth...

Look at this crazy thing!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

An ancient and essential miRNA family controls cellular interaction pathways in C. elegans A microRNA that arose at the origin of eumetazoans regulates cell adhesion and signaling in C. elegans through conserved targets.

Our work on the function of miR-51/miR-100 is out! miR-100 is widely conserved across eumetazoans but its function has been mysterious. Emilio Santillán found in worms it regulates signaling and extracellular matrix genes, some of which seem to be conserved targets! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Finally, the excellent postdoc work of Emmanuel Haillot is out, where he dissected the integration of Wnt, MAPK and Notch signaling in defining mesoderm and endoderm identities in the diploblast Nematostella. Strikingly similar to sea urchins. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

At long last, the version of record of our paper on the #Platynereis #connectome

"Whole-body connectome of a segmented annelid larva" is out.

Explore the rich online presentation with all the videos, figures and source data here:

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.97964

@eLife
@biology […]

Inés Fournon Berodia presents in front of an audience. She is wearing a black blazer and a white shirt. The slide on the screen has a black background, and reads "Hallmarks of epithelial cell extrusion". Below the title, a schematic of an epithelium, and the following text in bullet points: "Mitogen Activated Protein Kinase (MAPK)", "Facilitate extrusion" and "Protect surrounding cells"

Ines Fournon Berodia smiles widely, holding in place on her head a customized graduation hat.

Congratulations Dr. Fournon Berodia @inesfournon.bsky.social 🎉🤩 We are very proud of Inés for successfully defending her PhD thesis conducted in the @prhsteinmetz.bsky.social lab. Thank you to opponents @ragkousik.bsky.social & @levayerr.bsky.social for insightful discussions 👏

New preprint from the @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social lab 🤩 @annaferraioli.bsky.social & colleagues created a 3D model of the ctenophore apical organ, revealing cell-type diversity and exciting new insights into the evolution of central nervous systems 🧠🧪 Congratulations to the team! 👏

The genomic origin of the unique chaetognath body plan - Nature Genomic, single-cell transcriptomic and epigenetic analyses show that chaetognaths, following extensive gene loss in the gnathiferan lineage, relied on newly evolved genes and lineage-specific tandem duplications, not caused by a whole-genome duplication event, to shape their distinctive body plan.

Nature research paper: The genomic origin of the unique chaetognath body plan

go.nature.com/3HAsyyV

Åsgard workshop sparks new collaborations at the Michael Sars Centre Researchers from the Institut de la Mer de Villefranche and the Michael Sars Centre received support from the French-Norwegian mobility program Åsgard. Through seminars and discussions, participants l...

Researchers from @imev-mer.fr recently visited us for a workshop supported by the French-Norwegian mobility program Åsgard 🌊 Between seminars, lab demos and discussions, new ideas and plans for long-term collaborations emerged 🤩 Read more about this exciting partnership below ⤵️

Pls. share widely

Calling all transposon fans & lovers of genetic innovation

MOBILE GENOME welcomes you in Heidelberg, Nov. 4–7 2025

→ Vibrant & friendly community
→ Cutting-edge talks from mechanisms to physiology
→ Plenty of surprises (TEs never stop innovating)

submit abstract by July 29

FAST COMPANY Article: While retirement typically occurs, after completing a career and saving and investing for it, a new trend is emerging among Gen Z career professionals called "micro-retirement." Micro- retirements involve taking a one to two- week break from work every 12 to 18 months. Gen Z is using micro-retirement to avoid burnout, find greater fulfillment in their work, and enhance their overall well-being. However, it's not just Gen-Z:

'Vacations.'

The word is 'vacations.'

Metabolic Origins: Steering of early developmental fate #MetabolismMondays - the Node All the world's a metabolic dance, early career scientists are leading the way! Emerging perspectives in metabolism Dr Kristina StapornwongkulX:

#MetabolismMondays
Meet @kstapornwongkul.bsky.social, #newPI at @imbavienna.bsky.social @vbcscitraining.bsky.social, alumni from @viktri08.bsky.social @embl.org - discussing metabolism of embryonic development using #gastruloids.
#theNodeCorrespondents #ecr @the-node.bsky.social #DevBio #stemcell

Latest #MetabolismMondays interview has just dropped 👀

Find out more about #newPI @kstapornwongkul.bsky.social and her research 👇

PhD Research Fellow in protein bioinformatics  (282926) | University of Bergen Job title: PhD Research Fellow in protein bioinformatics  (282926), Employer: University of Bergen, Deadline: Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Open PhD position in my group: protein bioinformatics and protein-lipid interactions. Competences required: experience with protein bioinformatics, good programing skills, machine learning, interest for beautiful protein structures! Deadline: Aug 1st 2025. Official info => tinyurl.com/LTPbioinfo

Likely a dice snake (Natrix tessellata)

A single-cell ATACseq atlas of our favourite sea anemone, Nematostella vectensis! By @aelek.bsky.social @martaig.bsky.social

Decoding cnidarian cell type gene regulation https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.01.662323v1

Foundations: please step up and take over the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL). This is an absolutely essential scanned archive of all of the old journals and books from the 1500s to about 1920. Has been indispensable for my research.
about.biodiversitylibrary.org/call-for-sup...

Our latest preprint is out!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

How do #ctenophores control their sense of balance "without a brain"?

We used connectomics to uncover the neural network behind their gravity sensing!

Volume rendering of the ctenophore aboral organ reconstructed by volume EM, showing the gravisensory balancers and the four quadrants.

In our new preprint we describe the synaptic #connectome of the nerve net in the ctenophore gravisensory organ. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.26.661250v1 #biology #neuroscience #ctenophore #vEM

📢Our Norwegian node, @ncmbm.bsky.social, has launched its group leader recruitment campaign!

🌟Check out all the details are below👇!

Excited to share our new work on the 3D architecture of the ctenophore aboral organ!

We explored its remarkable cellular diversity and integration with the syncytial nerve net, uncovering connectivity and insights into the evolution of sensory complexes.

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