Miguel Branco

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...

Applications are open for 10 ECR funded places at The Company of Biologists Workshop on 'Novelty, Co-option and Divergence During Gene Network Evolution', organised by James Hombría and Antónia Monteiro.

📅 Deadline: Friday 5 December
Further information: www.biologists.com/workshops/ju...

🧪 We are #hiring!

▫️#Postdoc fellows
▫️#Talent & Development Section Head
▫️Talent Technician (temporary)
▫️Health, Safety and Quality Section Head
▫️Health & Safety Technician (temporary)
▫️Competitive Funding Officer
▫️Engineering Officer

& more! ➡️ bit.ly/3MR4wO8

#IRBJobs #Jobs #ScienceJobs

Postdoctoral Researcher (Howard Group) | John Innes Centre An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Postdoctoral Researcher to join the Howard Group at the John Innes Centre, working on cutting-edge science in the field of Computational and Systems Biology.

VACANCY - We have an opportunity for a Postdoctoral Researcher to join the Howard Group, working to develop computational models of epigenetic dynamics in the Polycomb system.

www.jic.ac.uk/vacancies/po...

Closing date - 9 November 2025
Salary - £37,500 - £45,350
Contract - 36 months, full-time

Independent research fellowships leading to tenured positions at the John Innes Centre.

Repost = nice. Thank you very much!!!

Promotional graphic for an EMBO Workshop titled "The mobile genome: genetic and physiological impacts of transposable elements," scheduled for 4-7 November 2025, at EMBL Heidelberg and virtually. The background features abstract DNA strands and a stylized graphic of a fruit fly in orange and green tones.

Join @embl.org for this conference exploring genetic and physiological impacts of transposable elements. Virtual registration is open until October 28. Learn more at plos.io/4nuqeZA.

A human-specific regulatory mechanism revealed in a pre-implantation model Nature - Genetic manipulation of blastoids reveals the role of recently emerged transposable elements and genes in human development.

Today in @nature.com, we present our work leveraging functional genomics and human blastoids to uncover a human-specific mechanism in preimplantation development driven by the endogenous retrovirus HERVK.
Special thanks to the reviewers whose comments improved our manuscript a lot! rdcu.be/eI3tD

Our next guest seminar is happening on Friday, October 10th at 3.30pm GMT in the QM Innovation Centre, Clark-Kennedy LT. This will be a joint seminar with Oxford Nanopore @nanoporetech.com
and QMUL. Please book your place here: nanoporetech.swoogo.com/QMUL_Epigene... or scan the QR code below.

Deep Intronic SVA_E Insertion Identified as the Most Common Pathogenic Variant Associated With Canavan Disease | Neurology Genetics Background and ObjectivesCanavan disease (CD) is a neurodegenerative disorder in which biallelic pathogenic variants in ASPA result in spongiform degeneration of the cerebral white matter, leading to ...

Another neurodegenerative disease caused by an SVA insertion. Not intron retention as seen in XPD, but aberrant splicing.

📣 Our department is hiring an Assistant Professor in Evolutionary Cell and Molecular Biology to join the @weillinstitute.bsky.social PLS spread the word!
academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30607

Three jobs in our shiny new building:

Kicked off a series on #Drosophila TE discovery and naming. The first post covers elements that predate the term "mobile element", and more. artemilin.dev/posts/te_nam...

He frequently attends our seminars at QMUL!

We are hiring! Oxford biology has three associate professorships available as we move to new state-of-the-art facilities

Three Associate Professor (or Professor) positions available at Oxford Biology. Come be my colleague! www.biology.ox.ac.uk/article/we-a...

Non-CG DNA methylation in animal genomes Nature Genetics - This Review discusses noncanonical DNA methylation (mCH) in animal genomes and highlights the remaining need to clarify whether mCH represents a conserved regulatory layer or a...

Very happy to have contributed to this review on "non-CG" #methylation in animals now out in @natgenet.nature.com. Working again with @obog.bsky.social and Tirsa is always a pleasure. We think this not so well studied form of methylation should be more widely considered, please read: rdcu.be/eFAEk

We're hiring (again)!

We are looking for an associate professor in cell and molecular biology, with a particular focus on immunology (defined broadly)

If you have a great record and exciting plans, consider joining our thriving and welcoming department

www.path.ox.ac.uk/vacancy/asso...

Awesome! Many congrats!

This, from @anthonymoser.com, is outstanding. (H/t @lecagle.bsky.social.)

"The makers of AI aren’t damned by their failures, they’re damned by their goals."

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...

🚨 🐜 is there a Bluesky starter pack for researchers who don’t study ants but who get lightheaded every time there’s an awesome ant paper? CC @mariusw.bsky.social @jrichardalbert.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

😲 Seriously?!

Having spent significant time here, the environment and support are truly amazing, and in my opinion, the best you can have in Oxford.

Reawakening retrotransposons: immune modulation in normal and malignant hematopoiesis Retrotransposons are mobile repetitive elements that constitute around 43% of the human genome. Normally silenced through epigenetic mechanisms, retrotransposons can become reactivated in response to ...

Our new review is out in Trends in Cancer. We had fund writing this :) We discuss the roles of retrotransposons in immune modulation in normal and malignant
hematopoiesis. www.cell.com/trends/cance...

If you've had a half-finished Node post draft in the back of your mind for a while, now there's some incentive to get it finished & out there for the community.

Remember that the Node is for all #devbio & #stemcell researchers. Register & you're free to post anything relevant without intervention.

Non-canonical enhancers control gene expression and cell fate in human pluripotent stem cells Enhancers are key gene regulatory elements that ensure the precise spatiotemporal execution of developmental gene expression programmes. However recent findings indicate that approaches to identify en...

Delighted & excited to share our latest preprint on non-canonical enhancers in human pluripotent stem cells, the result of a fantastic and fun collaboration with @guenesdoganlab.bsky.social‬:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🧵 below

ADAR1 as a Placental Innate Immune Rheostat Sustaining the Homeostatic Balance of Intrinsic Interferon Response at the Maternal‐Fetal Interface This study reveals that ADAR1, an RNA-editing enzyme, fine-tunes immune responses in the placenta by preventing the accumulation of immunogenic double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs) from interferon-stimulate...

New paper from Bin Cao, showing that placenta-specific KO of ADAR1 is embryonic lethal.

Mouse trophectoderm stem cells generated with morula signalling inducers capture an early trophectoderm state - Nature Cell Biology Gao, Li and colleagues derive trophectoderm stem cells from 32-cell mouse embryos. These cells represent an early trophectoderm state and are capable of developing into placenta cells, forming placent...

🥂Congrats to Gao, Li & co for their new @natcellbio.nature.com study: they derive #trophectoderm stem cells from 32-cell mouse #embryos. These cells represent an early trophectoderm state, develop into #placenta cells and organoids and contribute to blastoid generation.
rdcu.be/eAKzp

bit.ly/4fyZ9Sg

Awesome! Congrats!

🚨🚨🚨

Please RT!

We're looking for a postdoc to join an exciting joint project between our lab @upf.edu & @crg.eu (Barcelona) and the Sander lab @mdc-berlin.bsky.social (Berlin) investigating how alternative splicing and microexons influences the maturation of pancreatic islets.

Deadline: 30/09/25👇