Diego Balboa

YouTube video by Nobel Prize "I was the worst out of 250." John Gurdon, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2012

We lost another Gem of a scientist:

www.cam.ac.uk/research/new...
His work inspired so many of us, such a brilliant mind and a kind human

Apart from rewriting our fundamental understanding of cell identity, his love for science is equally legendary

Discovery and protein language model-guided design of hyperactive transposases - Nature Biotechnology Phylogenetic mining and protein language models uncover improved PiggyBac transposase sequences.

Discovery and protein language model-guided design of hyperactive transposases - @marcguellc.bsky.social @upf.edu @icreacommunity.bsky.social @crg.eu go.nature.com/4gXLGEw

Nobel Laureate Professor Sir John Gurdon dies aged 92 It is with great sadness that the University shares the news of the death of Professor Sir John Gurdon, founder of the Gurdon Institute.

So sad to hear the news - John truly was an inspiration to so many, and one of a kind.

www.cam.ac.uk/research/new...

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...

⚡⚡Excited to announce I'll be starting my lab at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Genetics (@molgen.mpg.de) in Berlin in December! Leaving sunny California to join a fantastic environment with colleagues who do super cool work.
🔬🦠I'm hiring at all levels! 🔬🦠Check: www.molgen.mpg.de/fueyo-lab

Postdoctoral Research Fellow - Vancouver, British Columbia (CA) job with University of British Columbia Department of Surgery | 12837375 The successful candidate will work on a project developing cell-based therapies for those living with type 1 diabetes (T1D).

We're looking for postdoctoral scholars to join our team in Vancouver 🇨🇦. We work on cell-based approaches aimed at curing type 1 diabetes. Bring your own ideas for projects or work on one that's already funded! More details here: www.nature.com/naturecareer...

Latent plasticity of the human pancreas across development, health, and disease. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.01.679230v1

Latent plasticity of the human pancreas across development, health, and disease. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.01.679230v1

Latent plasticity of the human pancreas across development, health, and disease. #SingleCell 🧪🧬🖥️
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.01.679230v1

Ghrelin and relamorelin alleviate hypoglycaemia in humanised mice with congenital hyperinsulinism https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.02.680116v1

Ghrelin and relamorelin alleviate hypoglycaemia in humanised mice with congenital hyperinsulinism https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.02.680116v1

Derivation of embryonic stem cells across avian species - Nature Biotechnology Embryonic stem cells for chicken and seven other avian species are derived.

Finally .. incredible much awaited wok on deriving avian naive ESCs

“Derivation of embryonic stem cells across avian species”

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Another record month for bioRxiv - and further evidence the pandemic spike+dip was just that and growth continues. Thanks to all involved and that includes 🫵

Plate CUT&Tag (Meers Lab version) This protocol describes a method for carrying out CUT&Tag-Direct in 96 well microplates for high-throughput processing of samples by a single operator with only standard lab...

We published a detailed protocol for our Plate-CUT&Tag method on @protocolsio.bsky.social to accompany our recent preprint (www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...) give it a try! Feedback welcome! dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.n2bvjed5wgk5/v1

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

Mechano-osmotic signals control chromatin state and fate transitions in pluripotent stem cells - Nature Cell Biology McCreery, Stubb et al. show that mechano-osmotic changes in the nucleus induce general transcriptional repression and prime chromatin for cell fate transitions by relieving repression of specific differentiation genes.

How do #stemcells integrate information to coordinate fate decisions? Delighted to finally see our work showing how growth factors regulate the mechano-osmotic state of the #nucleus and #chromatin to control #pluripotency exit out! www.nature.com/articles/s41... see 🧵 👇

Protein degradation shapes developmental tempo in mouse and human neural progenitors The pace of embryonic development differs markedly across mammalian species, yet the molecular mechanisms underlying these tempo differences remain largely unknown. Here, we systematically compared pr...

Collectively, we report species-specific differences in protein production and degradation rates and provide *in vivo evidence* that degradative machineries are less active in human embryos than in mice. Finally, we establish a causal role for protein degradation on dev. tempo.

👇👇

We've updated our first #preprint from the lab! A collaboration with @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social

🔥 now including in vivo 🐭&👤 embryo data

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

HDAC3 prevents enhancer hyperactivation to enable developmental transitions Dynamic gene regulation requires precise cooperation between transcription factors and chromatin modifiers at regulatory elements to achieve not only activation or repression, but also appropriate tra...

Genes are not On/Off switches. In a new preprint we show that HDAC3 is key to establish correct transcriptional dose in development. Gr8 work from N. Stamidis @ucph.bsky.social and collab. @jamiehackett.bsky.social @gregersenlab.bsky.social . Huge thx to all authors! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Our paper is finally out in Molecular Cell! 🚀 We uncover why PAM-relaxed Cas9 variants like SpRY are inefficient — they get kinetically trapped during target engagement. Mechanistic insights like this are key to engineering smarter, faster genome editors. Huge thanks to the team! #CRISPR #editing🔬🧬

Happy to share the Biodiversity Cell Atlas white paper, out today in @nature.com. We look at the possibilities, challenges, and potential impacts of molecularly mapping cells across the tree of life.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Comprehensive biologic characterization of a 117-year old supercentenarian, the world's oldest living person
www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Molecular basis of polyadenylated RNA fate determination in the nucleus Eukaryotic genomes generate a plethora of polyadenylated (pA+) RNAs[1][1],[2][2], that are packaged into ribonucleoprotein particles (RNPs). To ensure faithful gene expression, functional pA+ RNPs, in...

How are RNAs sorted for export vs. degradation in the nucleus? In collaboration with @heick.bsky.social’s lab we (@clemensplaschka.bsky.social and @juliusbrennecke.bsky.social labs) discovered a direct mechanistic link between the export and decay machineries: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... (1/x)

When metabolism provides more than fuel | EMBL A new study observed the key signalling role that metabolism plays in controlling the tempo of development.

EMBL scientists found metabolism controls embryonic development tempo through signalling in a way separate from its established metabolic function.

More research related to this signalling could illuminate how it guides cell fate, developmental timing -- even disease.

www.embl.org/news/science...

Optimized signaling pathway-based culture conditions stabilizes canine iPSCs & improves differentiation potential, including differentiation into cardiomyocytes. Valuable resource for future #diseasemodeling cell.com/stem-cell-re...

@isscr.org
@ucdavisvetmed.bsky.social

💸 Stem cell culture that’s ~95% cheaper and weekend-free: a win-win for PIs and trainees!
Our revised manuscript is online at ORE: open-research-europe.ec.europa.eu/articles/4-1...

Benchmarked across cell lines & differentiation protocols, including scRNA-seq — with lessons for #cultivatedmeat too!

α cells use both PC1/3 and PC2 to process proglucagon peptides and control insulin secretion α cells can generate and secrete both glucagon and GLP-1 with distinct processing enzymes to control metabolism.

Studies of prohormone convertase knockouts in mouse islets reveal plasticity in proglucagon processing to support intra-islet α cell-to-β cell communication, normally dominated by glucagon secretion www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

record 17,058 Marie Curie proposals in 2025 vs. 10,360 in 2024!!! the reason is pretty obvious, but wow that is a huge jump marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/news/msca-po...

Announcing our new PA biosensor, PILS-Nir1 – seen here in HeLa cells during PLC activation #lipidtime #phospholipids

Read the OA paper in JCB

University Researcher in Bioimaging / Universitetsforskare med inriktning bioimaging, 1.11.2025-31.12.2030

Come and work with us 5-year position available for a University Researcher in Bioimaging 1.11.2025-31.12.2030

abo.rekrytointi.com/paikat/index...