Stefan Mundlos

So happy to see the illustration of our work featured on the cover of @natgenet.nature.com 😍
It represents digits desintegrating into viral like particles. Thank you so much @annaamonaco.bsky.social for making this design!

So happy to see this paper out in @natecoevo.nature.com. Huge congrats to the whole team, and especially to @fany-real.bsky.social, @dariloops.bsky.social, @stemundi.bsky.social, Magdalena Schindler & Christian Feregrino. Ever wondered how bats develop wings from their hands? 🦇 Enjoy the read ;) 👇

Our comparative single-cell study on limb development in bats vs. mice reveals insights how evolution can produce massive changes by just changing the expression of a few TFs 😱
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congratulations, Anna! It really looks fantastic!

Comparative single-cell analyses reveal evolutionary repurposing of a conserved gene programme in bat wing development - Nature Ecology & Evolution Single-cell comparison of developing bat and mouse limbs reveals conservation of cell populations and gene expression patterns, and suggests repurposing of genes involved in proximal limb development ...

Our really exciting bat work got published. This was a fantastic effort by @fany-real.bsky.social, @dariloops.bsky.social, Magdalena Schindler and Christian Feregrino. Many thanks to all our collaborators! who made this possible!!!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Comparative single-cell analyses reveal evolutionary repurposing of a conserved gene programme in bat wing development - Nature Ecology & Evolution Single-cell comparison of developing bat and mouse limbs reveals conservation of cell populations and gene expression patterns, and suggests repurposing of genes involved in proximal limb development ...

Our first paper in Naturre Ecology & Evolution - it won't be the last. Essential insights in bat wing development and how evolution achieves such drastic morphological changes:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our first bat story is out! What turns a limb into a wing? Evolution's most impressive adaptation. The massive difference is achieved by small changes and the re-purposing of existing pathways - the principle of parsimony! Meis2 gene, normally expressed in proximal limb gets expressed distally.

50-70% of cases for WGS remain undiagnosed. Searching for an explanation? Read this article by Glaser et al. Activation of endogenous retroviruses can induce cell death in the embry. You can detect virus-like particles in these cell in EM! www.nature.com/ng/volumes/5...

Enhancer adoption by an LTR retrotransposon generates viral-like particles, causing developmental limb phenotypes - Nature Genetics Activation of an LTR retrotransposon inserted upstream of the Fgf8 gene produces viral-like particles in the mouse developing limb, triggering apoptosis and causing limb malformation. This phenotype c...

Our new story in Nature Genetics: endogenous retroviruses can produce viral-like particles in the embryo resulting in apoptosis and congenital malformation. If this would happen in human, it wouldn't leave a trace. No WGS or other analysis would identify this. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Nature Genetics' new issue is out: Our project is on the cover: An endogenous retrovirus causes limb malformation. Juliane's great scientific work and Anna's cover design!

The cover of Nature Genetics July 2025 issue. Digital art of a mouse paw skeletal prep on dark background, digits I to IV disintegrating into viral particles. A caption says “An endogenous retrovirus causes limb malformation”.

Pretty surreal to see my artwork on the cover of Nature Genetics! Big congrats to @julianeg.bsky.social, @stemundi.bsky.social and the others, and thank you Juliane for letting me help bring your research to life visually.

www.nature.com/ng/volumes/5...

Genome comparisons identify gene flow events between three species of right whales and the bowhead whale. Evidence of historical trans-equatorial migration during ancient glacial cycles. Beautiful work by BaiWei Lo in the lab together with Paolo Franchini: Genome Biology and Evolution, in press.

Nuage Therapeutics, co-founded by our group leader Denes Hnisz was highlighted in recent Nature Spotlight article: www.nature.com/articles/d42...

Find out more about work in the Hnisz lab: www.molgen.mpg.de/3857230/tran...

@irbbarcelona.org @xsalvatella1.bsky.social

Genetic and training adaptations in the Haenyeo divers of Jeju, Korea Aguilar-Gómez et al. find evidence of evolutionary adaptation with potential relevance to breath-hold diving in the Haenyeo divers of Korea. Genetic variants under selection in this population may hel...

A genetic study on Korean divers renowned for their remarkable diving abilities. They identified SNPs, one associated significantly with RBC count. Hematological variation is believed to provide additional oxygen capacity during diving. COOL!
www.cell.com/cell-reports...

The Robson lab's second paper! A truly fun collaboration with an unexpected and important finding - progenitors reconfigure 3D genomes organisation to commission loci for future cell fates. A heroic amount of work from a rockstar team.

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

Thanks also to the @stemundi.bsky.social lab where this work started and the Robson lab where it was finished! Last, my amazing supervisor @drmrobson.bsky.social who devised the inducible DamID mouse and spearheaded the project!

Fantastic work - groundbreaking, important!

This is an important paper: genome-lamina interactions are selectively released in early multipotent progenitors preceding gene expression, suggesting it primes regulatory domains for future potential activation. Fantastic collboration of Robson/Kind/Mundlos labs.

Our new study on whale genomics by BaiWei Lo together with Paolo Franchini. Evidence of historical trans-equatorial migration impacted by glacial cycles and connectivity of bowhead whale populations between the North Pacific right whale, the Southern right whale and the North Atlantic right whale.

Beautiful work 🤩

Chromatin loops are an ancestral hallmark of the animal regulatory genome - Nature The physical organization of the genome in non-bilaterian animals and their closest unicellular relatives is characterized; comparative analysis shows chromatin looping is a conserved feature of ...

I’m very excited to share our work on the early evolution of animal regulatory genome architecture - the main project of my postdoc, carried out across two wonderful and inspirational labs of @arnausebe.bsky.social and @mamartirenom.bsky.social. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

thanks a lot to you too! Hope we can continue this in the future!

Really proud of Michaela Bartusel, who initiated this work while being a PhD in our lab. Michaela never gave up and, together with the great guidance of my friend and former colleague Eliezer Calo, made some very interesting findings regarding the genetic basis of orofacial clefting.

Just published the new edition of “Principles of Development’ from now called “Wolpert’s Principles of Development’ to honour his memory and the origin of this textbooks that aims at distilling the, sometimes elusive, principles underlying animal and plant development shorturl.at/LrOxn

Cassandra Extavour today at MPIMG.

Nature is amazing! Efficient waste disposal as documented by my nest camera. Its all in the DNA, or?

Our BAT paper is accepted in Nature Ecology & Evolution! Single cell, gene regulation, TADs and key TFs that shape the bat wing. Genomics goes Evodevo 😍