Inés Fournon Berodia

Congrats everyone 🤩✨🥳

A widely used RNA assay labels the wrong molecules in several model organisms After a routine experiment raised suspicions, Steinmetz group researchers joined forces with collaborators to highlight the limitations of a commonly used RNA labeling product.

New paper out in @bmc.springernature.com 🤩👏 A routine 5-ethynyl uridine (EU) RNA labeling experiment in a sea anemone turned into detective work for @malinkjosavik.bsky.social, @ktgarschall.bsky.social & @prhsteinmetz.bsky.social 🕵️‍♀️

Imaging spotlight: U-ExM atlas of microbial eukaryotes - FocalPlane Imaging spotlight: U-ExM atlas of microbial eukaryotes - News

🔬🔦Our Imaging spotlight from @hiralshah.bsky.social & team highlights their U-ExM atlas of planktonic eukaryotes, including details on how you can explore this wonderful resource. Plus, check out Hiral’s top tips on getting started with expansion microscopy.
focalplane.biologists.com/2026/01/20/i...

Another #notTHECover unfortunately.

But this gorgeous, Tron-like vibe, drawn by the amazing @munafomarzia.bsky.social for our recent #ExM work with @gautamdey.bsky.social & @centriolelab.bsky.social will still be printed out in the lab.

Read here: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Thank you Ira ♥️

Thank you very much ☺️

Thank you Gautam! ☺️

Viva!

They are indeed wonderful! Thank you Omaya 🤩

Thank you James 🥹♥️

Thank you!

Thank you so much Ruth ♥️🥹

Together, our results show that the key hallmarks of epithelial cell extrusion are evolutionarily ancient, predating the last common ancestor of sea anemones, flies, and vertebrates🪼🪸✨ 5/5

Finally we found active TOR-signalling within rosettes and late apoptotic extruding cells to be phagocytosed by neighbouring rosette cells suggesting a link between cell extrusion and nutrient recycling ♻️ 4/5

We also developed an image-based machine learning pipeline 🤖 for automated cell segmentation and rosette ID using Cellpose as the basis. With this we found that extrusion density increases and epidermal cell density decreases during starvation 3/5

We also showed conserved active ERK signalling in the rosette cells and confirmed the apoptotic nature of the extruding cells. As previously studied in flies🪰 and mammals 🧫 2/5

Extrusion occurs via a rosette-like structure 🌸 in which a central ring is formed and translocates as we showed with a newly CRISPR/Cas9 generated β-Catenin-mOrange2 🚨 knock-in line 1/5

Thrilled to share the preprint from my PhD! 🥳 Where I characterised epithelial cell extrusion in a sea anemone
🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Big thanks to my supervisor @prhsteinmetz.bsky.social and coauthors @noahbruderer.bsky.social @lionlchristiaen.bsky.social at🇳🇴 @msarscentre.bsky.social ⬇️🧵

Top: The phylogenetic position of Nematostella and localization of Vasa2 +/Piwi1+ cells within the juvenile polyp body plan. (A) Simplified phylogenetic tree highlighting the phylogenetic position of the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis and other animal taxa relevant for this study. All animal silhouettes are licensed under CC0,1.0 Universal Public domain and taken from https://www.phylopic.org. (B–D) Schematics showing the localization of Vasa2+/Piwi1+ cells in a juvenile polyp, depicted in longitudinal (B) or cross-section (C, D). (E) Schematic representation of the multipotent, Vasa2+/Piwi1+ stem/progenitor cell population and a simplified summary of their germinal and somatic progeny. (F) Schematics of cell cycle phases, highlighting the incorporation of EdU during S-phase (black line) and the phosphorylation of Histone H3 (pH3+) during metaphase. Bottom: Confocal image of two Vasa+/Piwi+ stem-like cells in the inner epithelial folds of the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis. Immunolabelling of mOrange2-Piwi1 fusion protein (yellow) in a transgenic knock-in line combined with nuclear stain (white). Image credit: Paula Miramón-Puértolas.

How do animals with lifelong growth modulate cell #proliferation? @eudaldpascual.bsky.social @ktgarschall.bsky.social @prhsteinmetz.bsky.social show that starvation induces G1/G0 #CellCycle arrest in Vasa2+/Piwi1+ #SeaAnemone cells; cycle re-entry is TOR-dependent @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/48J2o6P

Inés Fournon Berodia, a young woman wearing a beige jacket and burgundy pants, presents a slide on a screen. It reads "Meet the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis" and shows pictures of pink sea anemones half-buried in sand.

Ruth Styfhals, a young woman wearing a green sweater, presents a slide on a screen in front of an audience. The audience is seen from behind at the forefront of the picture. The slide reads "Ctenophores: the oldest animals?" on a bright blue background. On the the left-hand side of the slide, we can see a photograph of a ctenophore or comb jelly - a gelatinous, transparent marine animal.

Congratulations to @inesfournon.bsky.social and @ruthstyfhals.bsky.social on their amazing talks at the very first BIO-Early Career Community Conference at @unibergen.bsky.social ✨ We are proud to support this fantastic initiative that brought our local community of young scientists together 👏

Congrats to all authors! 🎉 Very happy to see this paper out where I had the chance to finish off a small part on this crazy story on what happens if you kill all the neurons and then chop off the head of a sea anemone 🪸👾

Ectopic head regeneration after nervous system ablation in a sea anemone Via genetic ablation of neurons, Mazloumi Gavgani et al. show that the nervous system is essential for defining axial polarity during whole-body regeneration in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis.

Our paper on the role of neurons in Nematostella head regeneration is now out at @currentbiology.bsky.social Big thank you to all collaborators, it was a pleasure!

Ectopic head regeneration after nervous system ablation in a sea anemone: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...

🚨Our collaboration with @centriolelab.bsky.social & @gautamdey.bsky.social is out today in @cp-cell.bsky.social
We show that #Expansion #Microscopy is a broad-spectrum modality for Euks, enabling 3D phenotypic maps rooted to phylogeny.
#ProtistsOnSky #SciComm #SciSky

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

Exciting day for the lab: our 1rst paper is officially out in @currentbiology.bsky.social 🥳 Wonderful collaboration wt @gautamdey.bsky.social showing how Cryo-ExM achieves consistent immunostaining in diverse diatoms, from the lab and the natural environment 1/n
#ProtistsOnSky
tinyurl.com/2zxaund7

The evolutionary origins of synaptic proteins and their changing roles in different organisms across evolution Nature Reviews Neuroscience - Recent studies have shed further light on the evolutionary origins of chemical synapses, In this Review, Colgren and Burkhardt explore how ancient proteins were...

First neurons didn’t appear overnight. We trace their roots to ancient secretory cells - showing how lifestyle & behavior shaped the evolution of first synapses.🧠🌊 #Evolution #Neuroscience

Our latest in @natrevneuro.nature.com
Link: rdcu.be/eMX3E

@jeffcolgren.bsky.social @msarscentre.bsky.social

What are these?

You are looking at embryos of a sea squirt. Each of the 'soap bubbles' is a living cell, about a fourtieth of a millimetre in size. The outlines of the cells are visible thanks to fluorescent markers identified by Hitoyoshi Yasuo @hitoyas.bsky.social

see doi.org/10.1101/2024... 🧵

Still can’t quite believe it 💫 I’ve received the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science “Jeunes Talents” France 2025 award!
I’m so deeply honored — this recognition means so much to me, both as a scientist and as a woman who loves research. 💙🔬 1/3

Happy Ctenophore Day!
These glowing ocean drifters look like jellyfish but aren’t! They’re comb jellies, shimmering creatures that light up the sea with rows of beating cilia 💙🌈
Which species can you identify? 👀 Most are raised in @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social lab
#CtenophoreDay #CombJelly #Ctenophore

Jane Goodall, Eminent Primatologist Who Chronicled the Lives of Chimps, Dies at 91

Sad news: Jane Goodall has died. She did more than any other human for our understanding and appreciation of our closest relatives, the chimpanzees.

That chimpanzees are Endangered tells you everything about our species and about what made her so exceptional.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/o...

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 ✨