Juan Manuel Gomez Elliff

Interested to use cutting-edge imaging approaches to study the #evolution of #heart #morphogenesis? The Panfilio lab has a fully funded 3-year #postdoc offer in the framework of a new international #HFSP project: tinyurl.com/4p28nzs7 For details and applications, see tinyurl.com/ApplyHeartPo...

Thanks for the really nice post @ewanbirney.bsky.social 🙂.

Gracias @yosoyden.bsky.social 🙂🙂

Thank you very much!!!! Best thing in the world to see a colleague excited about our work!

Thank you very much Pavel, looking forward to your opinion about it! 🙂🙏

Thanks to everyone who contributed: Carlo for BM, Julio & Abhisha @ncstate.bsky.social for the physical model, @marialep.bsky.social for your feedback and Robert @prevedel-lab.bsky.social for your supervision and allowing me to work freely.

BTW: I am looking for GL positions! 👨‍🏫 😃

This is the second simulation, with contractility and stiffness increasing over time (the latter derived from what we learnt using Brillouin microscopy):

Finally, we developed a physical toy model of mesoderm folding to test if the dynamic, localised increase in stiffness facilitates folding the mesoderm? The answer is YES!. See the simulations ⤵️: first movie: ✅contractility ❌stiffness; second movie: ✅contractility ✅ stiffness.

How do microtubules make mesoderm cells -transiently- stiffer? Using live imaging & 3D-SIM, we found microtubules reorganise within the cell's sub-apical compartment, -where we measure the stiffening- by becoming increasingly aligned with each other during mesoderm folding:

We wanted to understand what makes the mesoderm transiently stiff during its folding & invagination. We did not see a correlation between actomyosin and the increase in stiffness. But surprise!: We depolymerised microtubules using Colcemid (right panel) and mesoderm cells remained in a softer state😱

On the contrary, the ectodermal cells located on the dorsal side of the embryo become softer! In sum, the embryo undergoes two diverging mechanical transitions: mesoderm: stiffening followed by softening; ectoderm: softening. See ⤵️ the softening of dorsal cells when they flatten and stretch:

Gastrulation starts when the mesoderm (bottom in ⬆️), folds and invaginates, and next, undergoes EMT. Here, we measured fast and biphasic mechanical dynamics: during mesoderm invagination, cells stiffen (Brillouin shift map -bottom panel-, transient yellow); during EMT, mesoderm cells soften.

Using Brillouin microscopy, we measured changes in stiffness within the whole-cell of an intact organism.
We focused on the most important event in our life: gastrulation, which in Drosophila is really fast (~30'):

What did we find?
In our interdisciplinary study, we used Brillouin microscopy to solve a morphogenesis mystery 🕵️🔎:

How is the 3D morphology of organisms acquired 🌻🐚🐯? Here, we mapped and investigated the role of the dynamics of cell/tissue mechanical properties (or stiffness) during morphogenesis.

🥁 New article 📢: #Mechanobiology of #development during #Drosophila #gastrulation using #Brillouin microscopy, now in @natcomms.nature.com : rdcu.be/ev6ZX
Collab. w/ @Prevedel_Lab @embl.org , Maria Leptin @marialep.bsky.social, @abhisha-thayambath.bsky.social, Julio Belmonte @ncstate.bsky.social

If one party bombs scientists it is expected the other party will do the same. If you throw missiles into a country responses will follow. Iran and Israel are neither of them pacific countries, they have aggressive drive. May be we should think about that. And losses are devastating on both ends.

how 'real' is this?

My suggestion: let that silly statement not be amplified through our replies. Lets just let it fall in the vacuum of thr forgotten.

Beautiful work!

Our colleague Prof. Benny (Ben Zion) Shilo passed away this morning @WeizmannScience . Benny worked at the forefront of world science in the study of molecular and developmental genetics. Among other things, he won the A.M.T. Prize in the field of genetics in 2013. He was also a great explainer of science, a kind teacher - and an artist photographer with a sharp eye and a sensitive soul. Benny, we will miss you very much. May his memory be blessed.

Our field has lost an amazing scientist, mentor, and old friend. Benny, along with Mike Hoffman, had a brilliant idea in the early 1980s. The first oncogenes were being cloned and they realized if we wanted to understand their roles in cancer, we needed to understand their normal function 1/n 🧪

what a beautiful thing: kiosko de diarios we call them in Arg, a use that may have been brought by spanish inmigrants.

🙏 crooked and dangerous.

Calling up for recommendations for meetings in 2025 at crossroads, or partially covering: development, mechanobiology, morphogenesis.
Thanks!!!

@aidanmaartens.bsky.social 🙂

Find out more about Daniel's lab in this 'Lab meeting' post:
thenode.biologists.com/lab-meeting-...

Geometry of gene regulatory dynamics | PNAS Embryonic development leads to the reproducible and ordered appearance of complexity from egg to adult. The successive differentiation of different...

There’s been exciting work recently linking ideas from topology to biological systems. This has ranged from bird flocking (www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....), to gene networks (www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....), and now how nuclei pack in the Drosophila blastocyst (www.nature.com/articles/s41...).

A big shout-out for @dianapinheiro.bsky.social being featured as Woman in Science!
A well-deserved honor for a fantastic scientist and inspiring mentor, and on top of that an amazing colleague and person. Super happy to have you as my office-neighbor and friend @impvienna.bsky.social!

No such thing as a standard career path - the Node Introducing a new careers interview series, featuring developmental biologists who have had vastly different career trajectories.

Have you read the interviews in our 'No such thing as a standard career path' series?

We hope these stories from #DevBio scientists show that many valid career paths exist 🛣️🎢

If you want to share your story, get in touch! #AcademicSky #SciSky

not everywhere... two years ago in Napoli evodevo i had the largest dissapointment. Probably is budget related rather than location...

Full-field Brillouin microscopy based on an imaging Fourier-transform spectrometer Nature Photonics - A Fourier-transform imaging spectrometer enables two-dimensional spectral Brillouin imaging at a throughput of up to 40,000 spectra per second over a...

Thrilled and proud about our latest advancement in Brillouin microscopy - enabling true light-sheet like mechanical imaging at high throughput. Out today in @naturephotonics.bsky.social
Congratulations Carlo! @carlobevilacqua.bsky.social
rdcu.be/eaDiX