Congratulations to the brilliant scientists shortlisted for the auditions @cnrs.fr for cell bio dev bio and evo-devo #section24!
Looking forward to hearing you in a few weeks.
Many other amazing candidates were no less deserving and we hope to see them next year.
sncs.fr/2025/12/11/c...
Tumours aren’t just a messy mix of cells—they’re highly organised and hierarchical societies!
Just like in all societies, small chats between individuals can drive collective emergent behaviours - we reveal how these sustain tumour growth and cellular heterogeneity. 🧵👇
This exciting study was the result of a long-standing and fruitful collaboration with @raphclement.bsky.social and the outstanding work of Emma Legait.
We are grateful to our funders, particularly @centuri-ls.bsky.social & Ligue contre le cancer
Why does this matter? Understanding how tumours self-organise could help us design strategies to destabilise their architecture. By targeting the local signals that maintain CSC clusters, we might harness the tumour’s own differentiation potential to shrink or eliminate it.
TAPs surrounding CSC clusters produce an EGFR ligand that locally pushes CSCs to differentiate. But CSCs fight back: they produce an EGFR inhibitor as a "shield," buying time to self-renew. This balance maintains the CSC population.
We find that CSCs surrounded by TAPs are more likely to differentiate. When we implemented this probabilistic rule in agent-based simulations, it recapitulated the 3D tumour architecture—and revealed how CSCs self-organise into clusters to resist differentiation signals.
We used the powerful Drosophila brain tumour model—a system where tumour growth is driven by an embryonic program that defines cancer stem cells (CSCs) and more differentiated progeny (TAPs). Using various markers, we mapped these cells in 3D and identify the rules for the CSC-to-TAP transition.
Tumours aren’t just a messy mix of cells—they’re highly organised and hierarchical societies!
Just like in all societies, small chats between individuals can drive collective emergent behaviours - we reveal how these sustain tumour growth and cellular heterogeneity. 🧵👇
Super happy to share the exciting work of Emma Legait, showing how neighbourhood composition determines cancer stem cell fate in hierarchical tumours. A great and long-standing collaboration with @cedricmaurange.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Il n'est plus tenable que notre gouvernement et, par là même, les médias qui relaient ses communications (ainsi que les verbatims de toutes les personnalités politiques), s'expriment via un outil de propagande fasciste étranger !
À vos signatures 👇
petitions.assemblee-nationale.fr/initiatives/...
💥🥚 ANR-funded Assistant Engineer position open in our “Control & Dynamics of the Ovarian Cycle” group at IBDM Marseille 🇫🇷
Work on mouse lines + lab logistics + follicle culture/imaging 🔬
🗓️ Apply by 26 Jan: emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U...
Please share widely — especially with colleagues in France!
Interested in the biophysics of organoids? We just published a review in Dev Cell—take a look! dlvr.it/TPyTb8 #Organoids #Biophysics
Follow IBDM for exciting science on Bluesky: @ibdm.bsky.social 🔬🙌
First-ever atlas of brain development shows how stem cells turn into neurons
There are 6 excellent human brain development papers in Nature - www.nature.com/articles/d41... Check them out!
🚨🚨🚨
The SFBD board needs to be renewed with 5 members
We wish to strengthen our board with young scientists
To apply: send a brief text introducing your research interests and motivations to sfbd@sfbd.fr by December 4th
Elections will be held online from December 10th to 17th
Please share the info
Very interesting. Congrats Eric!
Beautiful! 🤩 Congrats!
🚨 Exciting conference for stem cell aficionados!
‘Frontiers in Stem Cell Innovation’ will bring together experts in stem cell biology from academia & industry to discuss key developments as well as challenges in regenerative medicine and disease modelling.
fisci2026.eventbrite.co.uk
Please repost 🙏
Paul Nurse describing the main job of a PI
(From ‘The Thinking Game’, 2024)
Funders must recognise that great discoveries often come from studies that seeks to advance knowledge for its own sake
go.nature.com/3X5lbUg
Really impressive study on spinal cord development by @giulia-boezio.bsky.social and @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social. #neurodevelopment
Starting Monday!!! If you are in Paris, feel free to drop in for this exceptional course!
Self-organizing principles driving hierarchical transitions and cell heterogeneity in colorectal tumors. Very interesting work!
Excited to share our new #biorxivpreprint:
“Sexual dimorphism in the complete connectome of the Drosophila male central nervous system” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We describe the #connectomics reconstruction and analysis of an entire adult #maleCNS #drosophila central nervous system. 1/10
🎂 Mon blog (Neuro)biologie et société (neurobiologieetsociete.org) associé au @cafe-sciences.org a 10 ans en ce mois d'octobre 2025 !
neurobiologieetsociete.org
Les 5 billets les plus populaires au cours de ces 10 ans 👇 :
#CultureScientifique #vulgarisationscientifique
Reprigramming of neural crest cells to mesodermal fates drives Ewing sarcoma…. Very nice study using zebra fish!
www.cell.com/cell-reports...
Il n’est pas acceptable qu’un pays développé comme la France ignore l’ensemble des causes d’une incidence singulière du cancer.
www.lemonde.fr/idees/articl...
Developmental Biology lost a giant yesterday 😔
May his legacy thrive and keep inspiring current and future generations of scientists
www.gurdon.cam.ac.uk/nobel-laurea...
Abstract deadline (Dec 15th) approaching for the 2026 Neurogenesis meeting in Ascona. The last one was outstanding, so we’re all really looking forward to this second edition. Reassuringly in this day and age it’s held on the “Mount of Truth”.