Sébastien DARRAS

📜We are thrilled to announce that the latest MorphoNet paper is officially published 🎉 ! Discover 5 varied use cases in which MorphoNet helps segment, curate, evaluate & validate complex 3D+t datasets, and much more 🧑‍💻 ! Read at @elife.bsky.social : doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

Pathway to Independence Support postdocs on the job market Line drawing of a person at a bench transitioning to working at a desk Development

Apply for our Pathway to Independence (PI) programme, supporting postdocs in #devbio and #stemcell research during the transition to their first group leader position: www.biologists.com/grants/devel...

Application deadline: 2 February 2026.

Lectures de Noël (Par @gros-dessinateur.bsky.social)

Nicolas Sarkozy définitivement condamné dans l’affaire Bygmalion Cette procédure en cassation était l’ultime recours en droit français pour l’ancien président, condamné en première instance puis en appel pour l’explosion des dépenses de sa campagne électorale en 2012.

🔴 Nicolas Sarkozy définitivement condamné dans l’affaire Bygmalion

The logo for the DEEVA team in orange.

The #DEEVA team supports the #OrangeDay and wants to relay this awareness and information action on all violence against women in education, higher education and research, but also in society.

✏ Le dessin du jour, par Coco

Separation of the Early gastrula into oral and aboral halves shows that some neural cell tupes derive from aboral ectoderm, and others from i-cells

Drawing together findings from several projects over many years, we make a case that neural cell types in the Clytia larva have two embryological origins: i-cells and ectodermal.
bioRxiv 2025.11.17.688882; doi: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Ectopic head regeneration after nervous system ablation in a sea anemone Via genetic ablation of neurons, Mazloumi Gavgani et al. show that the nervous system is essential for defining axial polarity during whole-body regeneration in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis.

Our paper on the role of neurons in Nematostella head regeneration is now out at @currentbiology.bsky.social Big thank you to all collaborators, it was a pleasure!

Ectopic head regeneration after nervous system ablation in a sea anemone: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...

🚨New paper! 🚨
@jasminealqassar.bsky.social led this work on the silk glands of the pantry moth.

These two long tubes inside the caterpillar continuously make a ton of silk
How does this special organ work?

www.cell.com/iscience/ful...
@cp-iscience.bsky.social

🧵THREAD🧵

Intéressé ? N’hésitez pas à nous contacter pour les aspects recherches !

GBE | An Ocean of Opsins

@xodroont.bsky.social et al. explored the diversity and evolution of opsins using meta-omic data from the Tara Oceans and Tara Polar Circle expeditions, identifying opsins across the different metazoan groups.

🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf189

#genome #evolution #opsins

Le dessin du jour, par Soulcié

Bizarre Creature With 'All-Body Brain' Challenges What We Know About Evolution of Nervous Systems What other animals have we underestimated?

Bizarre Creature With 'All-Body Brain' Challenges What We Know About Evolution of Nervous Systems

[Message de service] Vous pensez/voulez postuler à un poste de Maître de Conférence ? Fort bien.
Avez-vous pensé à vous inscrire pour passer votre qualification ? C'est en ce moment qu'il faut aller s'inscrire en ligne... (odyssee.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr)

Excited to share our recent work from @lowelab.bsky.social on the intersection of life history and cell type evolution: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Single-nucleus profiling highlights the all-brain echinoderm nervous system A sea urchin is a head with a brain-like organization and a vertebrate-type retinal signature.

Our study, just published in #ScienceAdvances and funded by @hfspo.bsky.social, explores the post metamorphic cell composition of the sea urchin juvenile, revealing that its body is head-like. Long considered brainless creatures, they’re all brain instead!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

AAVs are crucial vectors for delivering biosensors into neurons! Using AAV delivery, we perform two-color imaging of calcium and potassium transients in neurons. These AAVs are now available from @braincase.bsky.social www.ebraincase.com/news/new-pro...

Si le site avait vendu du matériel servant à des actes terroristes, les serveurs seraient déjà saisis, les dirigeants interpellés. Mais quand il s’agit de violences sexuelles faites aux enfants, on tergiverse, déplore Arnaud Gallais, président de Mouv’enfants.

➡️ bit.ly/3LtDfF0

Cell cycle-driven transcriptome maturation confers multilineage competence to cardiopharyngeal progenitors | The EMBO Journal imageimageDuring development, multipotent cardiopharyngeal progenitors express both cardiac and pharyngeal muscle transcriptional programs. This study in the tunicate Ciona shows that cell cycle-regul...

Could not be more happy/proud/relieved to finally see this longstanding study published. Bluetorial to follow. @msarscentre.bsky.social
Cell cycle-driven transcriptome maturation confers multilineage competence to cardiopharyngeal progenitors | The EMBO Journal www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

The website for the 12th European Conference on #Echinoderms (London, July 2026) has gone live today. I am pleased to be involved as a member of the organising committee. Please spread the word: www.euroechino.net

📣 We are moving to Barcelona to join the amazing @crg.eu and explore how centrosomes & cilia work, evolve & respond to the environment. We are looking for
PhD students www.crg.eu/en/content/t...
Postdocs gimm.pt/jobs/postdoc...
Other calls to open, also for an experienced lab manager.
Get in touch!

Fully funded PhD position in my lab on the origin of the echinoderm skeletal ossicles. Join us in Montreal!

mapageweb.umontreal.ca/cameroc/Pubs...

Evolutionarily conserved transcriptional regulators control monoaminergic neuron development To what extent conserved developmental programs specify homologous cell types is a central question in biology. Here, we address this by focusing on reconstructing monoaminergic neuron development in ...

New preprint out! Evolutionarily conserved transcriptional regulators control monoaminergic neuron development.
We uncover how ancient regulatory programs orchestrate the neurons that produce serotonin and dopamine across 550 million years of evolution.
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Course Offerings | Marine Biological Laboratory

🔬 Applications are now open!

Join MBL’s world-renowned Advanced Research Training Courses, where scientists from around the globe come together to explore new ideas, master cutting-edge techniques, and become part of a dynamic network.

➡️Apply today: go.mbl.edu/courses

Upper panel: The descending decussating neurons (ddNs) of a Ciona larva at 19.5 h post-fertilization (hpf at 20 ◦C, ~ Hotta stage 29) labeled by expression of elecroporated Dmbx/Defcab >Unc-76::YFP reporter plasmid. Scale bar =10 μm. Right: comparative diagrams of ddNs and their putative vertebrate homologs, the Mauthner cells (species depicted as an example is Danio rerio). Lower panel: A summary diagram of a ddN gene regulatory network. Diagram for a ddN-specific gene regulatory network downstream of Pax3/7. Some branches are shared with different neuron types, such as ACINs, epidermal neurons, or papilla neurons (a sub-type of epidermal neurons). Dashed arrow indicates regulatory connection supported by RNAseq data, but not validated by reporter plasmids or in situ mRNA hybridization. Grey arrow indicates possible role of Lhx1/5 in regulating maintenance, but not initial activation of Dmbx and Defcab.

#DBfeature

Scientists have identified a provisional regulatory circuit downstream of the transcription factor Pax3/7 operating in the descending decussating neurons (ddNs) of the tunicate Ciona robusta.

By Kim, K., Piekarz, K. M., & Stolfi, A.
doi.org/10.1016/j.yd...

See you all in #BeautifulRoscoff next Spring 🙌🏻

Promoter-proximal gatekeepers restrict pleiotropic enhancer inputs to achieve tissue specificity Developmental enhancers are central regulatory elements that can activate multiple genes, yet how they selectively regulate one gene over its neighbours remains unclear. Using the Drosophila twist E3 ...

Ever wondered what drives enhancer-promoter specificity? Why would an enhancer activate one gene rather than another neighboring one?

Check our latest preprint, led by @mmasoura.bsky.social, to find out!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Sébastien Lecornu n’aura la garde du gouvernement qu’un week-end sur deux Toute l'information selon des sources contradictoires.

Sébastien Lecornu n’aura la garde du gouvernement qu’un week-end sur deux https://www.legorafi.fr/2025/10/15/sebastien-lecornu-naura-finalement-la-garde-du-gouvernement-quun-week-end-sur-deux/

Developping Fucus embryo labelled with the orange fluorescent probe SBIS (autofluorescent chloroplasts in red).

📣 SBIS, a new vital fluorescent probe for live imaging of #brownalgae #kelp in 4D. Just published in J. Cell Science by the Charrier team at the @igflyon.bsky.social. Download PDF on our team webpage here ➡️ shorturl.at/H5A9p
with first author Marie Zilliox featured here ➡️ shorturl.at/AMMoH

Early career group leaders We appoint researchers from across biology and biomedicine to set up their first groups at the Crick.

The @crick.ac.uk is recruiting Early Career Group Leaders

- Lab set-up, research costs, salaries for up to 5 researchers
- Support for up to 12 years
- Access to our core facilities
- Competitive salary
- Fantastic colleagues
- All areas of biology

Deadline 27 Nov

www.crick.ac.uk/careers-stud...