Takashi Fukaya

The Karolinska-UTokyo Joint PhD Course has wrapped up! It was a real pleasure serving as a course director and interacting with such talented students. Excited to see how your research grows from here!!

Thanks Ibrahim for stimulating talk and discussion!!

Decoding the molecular logic of rapidly evolving ZAD zinc finger proteins in Drosophila Identification of ZAD-ZnF genes as key regulators of genome organization during Drosophila embryogenesis.

Diving into evolutionary biology! What is the origin of the most abundant class of insect transcription factors, ZAD-ZnFs? We suggest that they evolved from ancestral insulator-binding proteins that control 3D genome topology.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

We are excited to host Ibrahim Cissé (Director, Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology & Epigenetics) at IQB, on March 3 (Tue)!!

I am excited to share a new review @cp-molcell.bsky.social written in collaboration with @tanjamittag.bsky.social , Mikayla Eppert, and Ambuja Navalkar where we review the current evidence for and against the role of density transitions in regulating transcription www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

New preprint from the lab! We identify the ZnF protein Mulberry as a condensation-dependent structural regulator of genome topology that organizes “multi-way regulatory hubs” in early Drosophila embryos.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Terrific paper on a new chromosomal
compartment where extensive loop
extrusion isolates domains from
other such domains

📣 Paper alert!

I am delighted that our paper exploring the impact of Neanderthal-derived variants on the activity of a disease-associated craniofacial enhancer has been published in Development today!
journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Become our colleague at @fmiscience.bsky.social! The FMI is a very special place to start your lab: a vibrant international institute with world-class research groups and facilities, core funding, fantastic trainees, great colleagues😅, and a collegial culture. Get in touch if you're interested!

Thanks Ito-san @itok10918.bsky.social for the great tour of New York!!

Fun visit to Rockefeller after the CSHL transcription meeting. It was great to catch up with Bob Roeder since his visit to Japan for the Kyoto Prize!

Japan requires name change after marriage — with big effects on female scientists Nature - Survey finds law requiring married couples to share the same family name causes havoc for researchers.

Japan is the only country in the world that legally requires married couples to share the same family name

https://go.nature.com/4lfbXPL

Delighted to share a new review paper from the lab. We summarized/discussed recent key findings in enhancer biology. Thanks Dan Larson and @tinekelenstra.bsky.social for this opportunity!!

www.sciencedirect.com/journal/jour...

A dream come true: my first first-author publication! 🧬 🎉 Working to unravel the mysteries of long-range gene regulation has been an incredible journey. Endless gratitude to Evgeny, the lab, and all of the amazing collaborators who helped make this happen 🙌

Looks like I’m going to miss my flight from Frankfurt to Tokyo because of a delay at Basel airport🥺

Thanks Luca @lucagiorgetti.bsky.social for hosting me at FMI. It was absolutely a fun visit and I got many nice feedback!

Giving a seminar at FMI Basel tomorrow! Looking forward to it!!

Curious about epigenetics, gene regulation, and developmental biology?
Apply for the PhD position in Mannervik lab at Stockholm University!
We use single-cell genomics and genetic approaches to uncover how cells acquire their identities during development. Explore the chromatin landscape with us!

Look forward to visiting University of Lausanne next week!

Pachypodium gracilius has finally bloomed with yellow flowers after seven years of growing it from seed.

パキポディウム グラキリス、種から育てて7年、黄色い花が咲きました。

Delighted to share a new preprint from the lab!

We identified zinc-finger associated domain (ZAD)-containing C2H2 zinc-finger proteins (ZAD-ZnFs) as insulator-binding proteins in Drosophila.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

YouTube video by Johan Gibcus Rules of Engagement

Earnshaw, Goloborodko, Dekker & Mirny labs are excited to present our latest work, "Rules of engagement for condensins and cohesins guide mitotic chromosome formation" - now accepted!!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
A short clip describing the key results:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmvO...

Nice to catch up with Luca @lucagiorgetti.bsky.social in Tokyo!

So excited to host my friend and former labmate @laghalab.bsky.social as a ... (drumroll) Special Guest at our institute! Mark your calendars and expect a great talk with beautiful live imaging.

Only one week left to submit your abstract to the @embo.org workshop on "Enhancer mechanics and Enhanceropathies". Submit now and present your latest work in one of our short talks.

It was great to see my long-time friend from graduate school, Takashi Akera
@takashiakeralab.bsky.social

Do you have an exciting story about #enhancers or #enhanceropathies?. Then submit your abstract to the @embo.org workshop on "Enhancer mechanics and Enhanceropathies" in Denmark before is too late: the deadline for abstract submissions is in two weeks (March 17th)!

meetings.embo.org/event/25-enh...

Chromosomal domain formation by archaeal SMC, a roadblock protein, and DNA structure - Nature Communications Eukaryotic chromosomes are organized into arrays of compact domain structures called TADs. Here the authors show that a member of the Archaea, the prokaryotic domain closest to the Eukarya, uses a euk...

Excited to share our work on archaeal 3D genome! This paper revealed how an archaeal SMC complex sculpts TAD-like domains by cooperating with a roadblock NAP and physical properties of DNA. Many congrats to our talented PhD student Kodai!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Making intrabodies from antibodies just got easier! Learn how we made 𝟭𝟵 intrabodies to bind and light up peptides and histone modifications in live cells. And thanks to Academia, all sequences are freely available. (video credit: Yuko Sato @YukoSatoT2) (1/15)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

1/n Excited to share our new preprint! Using live imaging in Drosophila embryos, we show that RNA Pol II clusters switch from sites of initiation to elongation during zygotic genome activation and that they are stably associated with an active gene: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...