M. Veronica Pravata

LGBTQ+ realities in the biological sciences - preLights Who “belongs” in biology? Researchers conduct the first comprehensive analysis of the LGBTQ+ climate in biological sciences.

Who “belongs” in biology?

The first comprehensive analysis of the LGBTQ+ climate in the biological sciences! #LGBTinSTEM #preprint 🏳️‍🌈

#preLight prepared by @ryanharrison13.bsky.social, Stefan & @reinierprosee.bsky.social ⬇️👀
prelights.biologists.com/highlights/l...

LMU Open Science Center Summer School 2025 programme and application process

📢 We are pleased to announce our 4th open science summer school! #OSSS25

📌 Sept 15-19, Munich & Zoom
🔥 keynotes and outstanding hands-on workshops
2️⃣ dual-track: open science training and instructor training tracks!

➡️ apply before July 14 or register anytime for the public lectures!

Dynamic Landscape Analysis of Cell Fate Decisions: Predictive Models of Neural Development From Single-Cell Data Building a mechanistic understanding of cell fate decisions remains a fundamental goal of developmental biology, with implications for stem cell therapies, regenerative medicine and understanding dise...

Our latest "Dynamic Landscape Analysis of Cell Fate Decisions: Predictive Models of Neural Development From Single-Cell Data"

A rigorous mathematical foundation for Waddington's landscape to study cell fate decision making

Applied to ventral neural tube development

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

Still openings, check it out!

Very cool @natgenet.nature.com study by @danielibrahim.bsky.social revealing hidden enhancer conservation across distant species via genome synteny 🧪🧬
Nice overview by @alexdemendoza.bsky.social:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

DCHS1 Modulates Forebrain Proportions in Modern Humans via a Glycosylation Change Comparative anatomical studies of primates and extinct hominins, including Neanderthals, show that the modern human brain is characterised by a disproportionately enlarged neocortex relative to the st...

Check out this superb, beautiful and insightful work from @silvianeuro.bsky.social lab led by my brilliant colleague @mveronicapravata.bsky.social! What a thrill to learn about key biochemical changes across evolution contributing to drive brain formation😊

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

Too kind!!! 🤩 Thank you so much!!

Benchmarking cerebellar organoids to model autism spectrum disorder and human brain evolution While cortical organoids have been used to model different facets of neurodevelopmental conditions and human brain evolution, cerebellar organoids have not yet featured so prominently in the same cont...

New preprint alert 📣
#Cerebellum, organoid, autism & brain evolution 🧪 🧫🧠🧬
Collaboration with G. Testa; fruit of years of work by smart students, led by postdoc Davide Aprile. Organoids to understand better the developmental basis of autism (focus: CHD8) & sapiens brain evolution (focus: CADPS2) 🧵

DCHS1 Modulates Forebrain Proportions in Modern Humans via a Glycosylation Change Comparative anatomical studies of primates and extinct hominins, including Neanderthals, show that the modern human brain is characterised by a disproportionately enlarged neocortex relative to the st...

Excellent work from @silvianeuro.bsky.social lab on DCHS1 ! @mveronicapravata.bsky.social congratulations!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

DCHS1 Modulates Forebrain Proportions in Modern Humans via a Glycosylation Change Comparative anatomical studies of primates and extinct hominins, including Neanderthals, show that the modern human brain is characterised by a disproportionately enlarged neocortex relative to the st...

Excellent work from @silvianeuro.bsky.social lab, led by a brilliant young scholar, @mveronicapravata.bsky.social, on
the impact of a mutation in DCHS1 distinguishing sapiens from Neandertals: shifting the ratio between cortical & striatal progenitors
(Nice to see work going beyond the cortex) 🧪🧠🧬🧫

Regulatory logic of human cortex evolution by combinatorial perturbations Comparative genomic studies between contemporary and extinct hominins revealed key evolutionary modifications, but their number has hampered a system level investigation of their combined roles in sca...

Delighted to share our new preprint, the outcome of many years of collaborative work with Giuseppe Testa’s group, both at the bench & in front of the computer, probing human brain evolution using organoids. We tried something cool, and learned a lot 🧪🧫🧠🧬
[follow 🧵]
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Why does the forebrain expand dramatically while other neural regions grow less? Our new publication reveals progenitor metabolism critically shapes region-specific brain growth. Thread below. authors.elsevier.com/a/1k-udL7PXu...

Wonderful to have the last (major) part of my postdoctoral work preprinted! Huge thanks to @ioansarr.bsky.social and @tyamadat.bsky.social—it's been a blast. Grateful to be part of the inspiring, collaborative and supportive team @kaessmannlab.bsky.social! #Cerebellum rocks! #EvoDevo #GeneRegulation

The evolution of gene regulation in mammalian cerebellum development Gene regulatory changes are considered major drivers of evolutionary innovations, including the cerebellum's expansion during human evolution, yet they remain largely unexplored. In this study, we com...

Brilliant new preprint by @ioansarr.bsky.social @marisepp.bsky.social @tyamadat.bsky.social @steinaerts.bsky.social @kaessmannlab.bsky.social
on the evolution of gene regulation in mammalian #cerebellum development 🧪🧠🧬
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Amazing Lab, fantastic people and a stellar PI: Klingler Lab is a wonderful place for a great postdoc!!

Open positions in human developmental neuroscience, check it out!

Glycocalyx dysregulation impairs blood–brain barrier in ageing and disease - Nature Disruption of mucin-domain glycoprotein expression and function in the endothelial glycocalyx are associated with ageing and Alzheimer’s disease, leading to dysregulated blood–brain barrier function.

Happy to share this new #glycotime work with collaborator Tony Wyss-Coray, led by grad student Sophia Shi, mucin loss at the BBB is associated with aging and cognitive decline, can be reversed by restoration with with gene therapy. Aging is a mucinopathy!

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

The nuclear matrix stabilizes primed-specific genes in human pluripotent stem cells - Nature Cell Biology Ma et al. show that heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein U promotes the primed state in human pluripotent stem cells by interacting with nuclear matrix protein, Matrin-3, and regulating primed-spec...

☕️Ma et al. show that heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein U promotes the primed state in human #pluripotent stem cells by interacting with #NuclearMatrix protein, Matrin-3, and regulating primed-specific genes.
👉https://rdcu.be/ebq0W
bit.ly/4iiVHLV

Should biology put complexity first? The dictum “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler” poses a problem for biology. How simply can it be told without doing damage to its complex nature? The answer might be foun...

www.cell.com/cell-systems...

Human Genetics: The Evolving Story of FOXP2 FOXP2 mutations cause a speech and language disorder, raising interest in potential roles of this gene in human evolution. A new study re-evaluates genomic variation at the human FOXP2 locus but finds...

I often see misunderstandings & confusion (in media but also scientific literature) over what studies of the FOXP2 gene can & cannot tell us about human evolution. Here's a short commentary I wrote a few years ago for @currentbiology.bsky.social with aim of clarifying for a general readership. 🧬🗣️🧪

Beautiful new work by @itsmeawais.bsky.social @estherkli.bsky.social @djabaudon.bsky.social @silvianeuro.bsky.social @mveronicapravata.bsky.social & L. Gomez, probing evolutionary changes in the developmental expression of shared genes, focusing on the cortex. Key role for JUNB in human 🧠
👇🧬🧫🧪

TGIF2 is a major regulator of neural stem cell fate and neurogenic priming During brain development, neural stem cells (NSCs) must balance self-renewal with differentiation and ensure lineage progression. To identify novel regulators of NSCs during neurogenesis, we isolated ...

🚀 Excited to share our latest work uncovering TGIF2 as a key transcription factor (TF) safeguarding neural stem cell (NSC) fate and regulating neurogenic priming! 🧠

🔗 biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.13.635953v1

Here’s how we found it and why it’s important!🧵👇

✨ We tend to think of species-specific differences as resulting from the presence of species-specific genes. In our latest work with @djabaudon.bsky.social, we show that building brains is not only about which genes you use, but also about when and where you do.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Constrained roads to complex brains Neural development and brain circuit evolution converged in birds and mammals

Three fantastic @science.org papers on convergent development & evolution of neurons + their connections in the bird &
mammalian pallia, by @kaessmannlab.bsky.social @steinaerts.bsky.social & Fernando García-Moreno.
Expertly synthesised by @giacomogattoni.bsky.social & Maria Antonietta Tosches 🧪🧠

Our new paper is out in BioRxiv. Using human fetal tissue and cortical organoids, we figured out how human bRG cells colonize the developing neocortex to expand the oSVZ stem cell niche. Turns out, it's a more complex process than we had anticipated!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Front covers of the first one hundred PhD theses of the International Max Planck Research School for Language Sciences (displayed as a ten-by-ten grid) spanning multiple disciplines from linguistics and psychology to neuroscience and genetics.

Our International Max Planck Research School is offering two PhD fellowships, funded by @maxplanck.de & hosted at @mpi-nl.bsky.social, to carry out innovative research projects on language & genetics, & on multimodal language. Application portal closes 6th Jan 2025! 🧪
www.mpi.nl/imprs-phd-fe...

Learning resources for scientists · eLife A collections of articles that provide practical resources and guidance for researchers and academics

🌟 Whether you’re a new student, lab leader or decision-maker at an institutional level, you can now find free tools and guidance all in one place.

Our Learning Resources page launched in October thanks to insights from eLife Ambassadors. #12DaysOfeLife
https://buff.ly/4f8vIpk

After an inspiring visit to MPI-EVA (thanks Genevieve Housman!), I’ve been re-reading one of my favorites, Neanderthal Man.

If you’re a young student considering PhD, read Chapter 2.
If you’re a PhD student feeling a bit lost in your project, read Chapter 2.
If you're...., read Chapter 2 anyway

The CSHL conference on neural stem cell models & development coincides this year with the publication of a consortium effort in Nature.

This article outlines a framework for experiments with #organoids, #assembloids from QC of pluripotent stem cells to characterizing cells in vitro & in vivo.

In Praise of Peer Review As an Editor of the journal Development, I often hear complaints about peer review. We all know the problems – from lengthy review times to requests for seemingly unnecessary experiments. I a…

I wrote some thoughts about why peer review matters

It shapes scientific standards, maintains field coherence & trains new researchers

Yes, it needs improvement—but it's the glue that holds scientific progress together

briscoelab.org/2024/12/11/i...