Maria Losada-Pérez

We are pleased to announce that the 2nd DrosoSpain meeting #DrosoSpain2026 will take place in San Joan de Alicante from the 9th to the 11th of April 2026 #savethedate

Reaffirming the value of model organisms in training scientific minds - Nature Cell Biology As biomedical research prioritizes human models and translational promise, classic model organisms are increasingly dismissed. Here we argue that they have a lasting value, both in enabling discovery and in cultivating scientific thinking, by training researchers in systems reasoning, integrative thinking and independent inquiry.

Model organisms, in particular non-mammalian model organisms, such as yeast, Caenorhabditis elegans, #Drosophila and zebrafish, have long stood at the centre of biological discovery www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Confocal Images of the fruit fly Proventriculus

Confocal Images of the fruit fly Proventriculus

🔬New paper! This has been my personal favorite project I’ve ever done - also, the only one that the President has been relentlessly trying to destroy by 100% defunding our lab & institution. Please enjoy:

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

@nadiesabenada.org El objetivo del archivo sonoro de puertas podria ser hacer un cortometraje, protagonizado por B&A o A&B, usando esos sonidos. Habria que armar una historia donde quepan todas. Sin duda merecería un "subnoondas", que a ver si lo inventan pa que los ganeis todos (desde el cariño)

For fly, the total human genes conserved is 57.9% and
Human rare disease genes conserved is 73.1%!
🪰👤

😍

For all of you who cannot access pubmed, here is a good alternative:
europepmc.org

But not only that, this glia-to-neuron transformation is boosted in injury!
These findings open a new approach to generate new neurons in a damaged CNS. Understanding the molecular mechanism behind this physiological glial behaviour would have and immeasurable value

With these experiments we find out that around 6-8% of EG switch to ALG fate in normal and injury conditions while ALG to EG switch is rare. But what definitely blew our minds was that both ALG and EG were able to change their glial fate to become neurons

But when we inhibit apoptosis we still have some cells missing. So we decided to find out if those missing cells had changed their identity. Using the wonderful tool G-TRACE,we were able to follow those cells even though they did not have their identity promoter activated

Although both EG and ALG have a basal proliferation rate, only ALG increases proliferation in response to injury.
By exploring this process we observed that sometimes one of the sibling cells died through apoptosis...

To study glial responses we use an injury paradigm that reproduces the stereotypical glial responses previously described in numerous organisms and CNS injury paradigms.
1st we confirmed glial proliferation upon injury in adults. Moreover, we found that...

In the Drosophila CNS there are two types of neuropil associated glia. Astrocyte-like glia (ALG) and Ensheathing glia (EG). These two populations are equivalent to vertebrate astrocytes, oligodendrocytes and OPCs...

Really happy to announce that the final version of our work about "Adult neurogenesis through glial transdifferentiation" in drosophila is finally out in @elife.bsky.social elifesciences.org/reviewed-prepr…
Congrats team! @sergiocasastinto.bsky.social

The FlyBoard is happy to announce the call for nominations for the Drosophila Community Service Award. Please submit your nomination by 01/17/2025 by email to: drosophilaserviceaward@gmail.com. Please repost.

Who do I know that works in cohesins that can answer a couple of questions? Thanks much

Cul-4 inhibition rescues spastin levels and reduces defects in hereditary spastic paraplegia models Restoring spastin protein levels could be beneficial for patients with hereditary spastic paraplegia. Sardina et al. identify a new druggable pathway regul

Sardina, F., Carsetti, C., Giorgini, L., Fattorini, G., Cestra, G., Rinaldo, C. (2024). Cul-4 inhibition rescues spastin levels and reduces defects in hereditary spastic paraplegia models. Brain : a journal of neurology, academic.oup.com/brain/articl...

This is gold!

100% recommended!

This is so cool!

Wow! I didn't know that

Check out this fly boxing away a parasitic wasp who is trying to lay eggs in its abdomen.
I've watched a lot of fly behavior, but never seen anything like this. Makes you wonder how much we miss by studying lab organisms in isolation from their natural threats.
Vid from: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

Great resource here!