Maxwell Shafer

Cartoon zebrafish with green lit-up brain, in well of plate responding to hit molecule.

Drug discovery for nervous system disorders is really challenging. We think early/rapid in vivo testing with zebrafish will accelerate the drug development cycle for conserved targets. Check out our proof-of-principle pilot study and virtual drug discovery pipeline (tinyurl.com/3whr23hs). #Skytorial

Team fish - we need your help! We are trying to build a database of all the fish chromosome-scale genomes where sex chromosomes have been identified. Have you build one or some? Do you know someone who has? Can you post the link in the comments? Please spread the word and repost! Thank you!

Looking forward to my trip to @uoftcellsysbiol.bsky.social this week. Thanks to @maxshafer.bsky.social for the invitation!

If you use GMail, AI (Gemini) was turned on yesterday by default and now scans all of your content for machine learning. To turn off, go to Settings>General and scroll down. Uncheck the box for "Smart features."

There's other "Smart" add-ons as well, but that's the one that reads your content.

Join our upcoming course on cutting-edge evolutionary & genomic methods for Evo-Devo studies!
We'll cover: comparative & single-cell transcriptomics,ATAC-seq, phylogenomics, comparative genomics, gene regulation, and much more
Spots still available: sites.google.com/view/evodevo...

Rapid canalization of chromosome conformation-transcription fingerprints during embryogenesis revealed by fully-automated cell identity decoding with CeSCALE https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.22.684035v1

Interested in the brain, circuits, and behavior?
Enjoy tinkering and asking bold questions in neuroscience?

The Forli Lab (IIT, Genova, Italy) is hiring!

🧠 🔬 🟩◻️🟥->🍕🚫🍍

Check out our website for updates:
sites.google.com/view/forli-lab

Reposting for the Monday morning scrollers! Funded PhD opportunity with me @multipleye-lab.bsky.social @bristolbiosci.bsky.social - spiders, their eyes, and their babies under long- and short-term light pollution!

One week to apply for our fully funded PhD position in Norway! This is a really exciting project in collab. with University of Helsinki and Benchmark Genetics.

Samples are ready - you do (read: learn) everything - functional genomics, bioinformatics, genotype-phenotype associations 🤩

Please RT!

The Department of Cell & Systems Biology at University of Toronto invites applications for a full-time tenure stream position in the field of Animal Morphogenesis.
#CellBiology #DevelopmentalBiology #mechanobiology #TissueMorphogenesis
#SystemsBiology

jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Toronto-...

Multicolored CT model of a fossil cichlid skeleton. Image credit: Austin Babut (project technician).

Do you like cichlids? Fossils? Fossil cichlids? Would you like to study them as part of a graduate degree at the University of Michigan, joining an NSF-funded project? Get in touch.

Evolution of Cajal-Retzius Cells in Vertebrates from an Ancient Class of Tp73+ Neurons In the developing cerebral cortex, Cajal Retzius (CR) cells are early-born neurons that orchestrate the development of mammalian-specific cortical features. However, this cell type has not been conclu...

Excited to share our latest work on brain evolution, where we dive into the evolution of Cajal-Retzius cells! If you are interested in cell type evolution and cerebral cortex evo-devo, please read on… www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧵 1/7

Think you know shark teeth? Think again! 🦈🦷

Nathan Lujan (Curator of Fishes at ROM), and Kevin Seymour (Research Associate, Natural History) showed us many different types of shark jaws while they prepared for Sharks, opening October 11.

Inter-individual gene expression variability implies stable regulation of brain-biased genes across organs Phenotypic variation among individuals plays a key role in evolution, since variation provides the material on which natural selection can act. One important link between genetic and phenotypic variat...

Update of our preprint on Inter-individual gene expression variability in fishes! We improved statistical analyses of continuous variables, and especially added machine learning on promoters which confirms cis-regulation of organ-specific expression variability.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Purple pollen visible in a dissected flower of Linum grandiflorum, flowering flax, an insect-pollinated species.

*Postdoc in Evolutionary genomics at Stockholm University*
We are recruiting a postdoc for a large interdisciplinary project to investigate evolutionary drivers and genomic consequences of pollen evolution in response to pollination mode shifts in flowering plants. 1/5

su.varbi.com/what:job/job...

Zebrafish sleep displays distinct sub-states Sleep is an essential and evolutionarily-conserved behavior. While mammals and several other species have been shown to exhibit well-defined sleep sub-states, some of which have been ascribed specific...

Modelling sleep states in zebrafish, and conservation of multi-stage sleep in fish! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Now published @natecoevo.nature.com with @annika-nichols.bsky.social, our latest on the evolution of 𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱 across 𝟲𝟬 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘀 of cichlid fishes! doi.org/10.1038/s415...
with members of the @schierlab.bsky.social and Salzburger labs, as well as the burgeoning Shafer lab @uoftcellsysbiol.bsky.social

Beautiful figures!! Can't wait to dig in to this one!

Sleep Evolution Group A highly-customizable Hugo research group theme powered by Wowchemy website builder.

This is just the first effort of our foray into cichlid behaviour and genetics! If you are interested in working on the evolution, genomics, and neurobiology of sleep and chronobiology @uoftcellsysbiol.bsky.social in beautiful Toronto, please reach out! shafer-lab.netlify.app

Widespread temporal niche partitioning in an adaptive radiation of cichlid fishes - Nature Ecology & Evolution An analysis of behavioural, eco-morphological and genomic data in 60 species of Lake Tanganyika cichlids reveals a remarkable diversity of temporal activity patterns across species, suggesting that te...

Analysis of behavioural, ecomorphological and genomic data of Lake Tanganyika cichlids reveals remarkable diversity of temporal niche partitioning

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

Thanks to Andrew Conith for writing a fantastic @natecoevo.nature.com News & Views for our study! doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Thanks to Andrew Conith for writing a fantastic @natecoevo.nature.com News & Views for our study! doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Sleep Evolution Group A highly-customizable Hugo research group theme powered by Wowchemy website builder.

This is just the first effort of our foray into cichlid behaviour and genetics! If you are interested in working on the evolution, genomics, and neurobiology of sleep and chronobiology @uoftcellsysbiol.bsky.social in beautiful Toronto, please reach out! shafer-lab.netlify.app

Thanks to all my coauthors, including my first two grad students in Toronto, Amelia & Ayasha; thanks to @schierlab.bsky.social and Walter Salzburger as always for everything; and many huge thanks to @annika-nichols.bsky.social, who is my co-first-author and forever friend and colleague!!

Figure from the paper showing the genomic associations we identified with sleep and activity patterns

Plot showing the association between a SNP nearby the gene crcp and nocturnal activity across cichlids; along with a plot showing the genotype to phenotype relationship at that same SNP

Finally, we took advantage of extensive genomic data already generated by the Salzburger group to link activity and sleep phenotypes to genomic loci - intriguingly, they were not enriched for clock genes as hypothesised, but synaptic genes, and genes associated with neurological diseases in humans!

Plots demonstrating that temporal activity niches are not confined to specific eco-morphological niches, and examples of diurnal, nocturnal, and crepuscular piscivorous fishes

We hypothesise that these activity patterns represent a novel axis upon which these species diversified, leading to multiple temporal versions of each eco-morphological niche, and facilitating their rapid adaptive diversification!

Ophthalmotilapia boops

Lamprologus signatus

Some, like the algivorous O. boops, sleep 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝟮 𝗵𝗿𝘀 𝗮 𝗱𝗮𝘆, whereas others, like the mud hole dwelling L. signatus, 𝘀𝗹𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝘂𝗽 𝘁𝗼 𝟭𝟱 𝗵𝗿𝘀 𝗮 𝗱𝗮𝘆!

Figure showing the phylogenetic relationships between the species in our study, as well as example diurnal, nocturnal, crepuscular, and cathemeral species activity patterns

(above video) we tracked hundreds of individual fish in the lab across 6 days and 6 nights from 60 species of cichlids from Lake Tanganyika - and discovered that they exhibit all known activity patterns (diurnal, nocturnal, crepuscular, and cathemeral)...

Now published @natecoevo.nature.com with @annika-nichols.bsky.social, our latest on the evolution of 𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱 across 𝟲𝟬 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗲𝘀 of cichlid fishes! doi.org/10.1038/s415...
with members of the @schierlab.bsky.social and Salzburger labs, as well as the burgeoning Shafer lab @uoftcellsysbiol.bsky.social

How The Internet Died Dissecting a tragedy of the commons

The Internet was once a shining beacon of potential and opportunity. Then it was destroyed.

My latest newsletter is over 10,000 words about how it happened, who's responsible, and how we can build a better, fairer Internet.

whatwelost.substack.com/p/how-the-in...