Pawel Burkhardt

#stuffthatmatters Congratulations!

Daily ultrastructural remodeling of clock neurons A cluster of Drosophila clock neurons remodel their axonal arbors daily. Using volumetric electron microscopy at different times of day, Ispizua, Rodriguez-Caron, and colleagues reveal ultrastructural...

SO HAPPY to share our new paper in @currentbiology.bsky.social! Using volumetric EM, we found daily shifts in synapses, vesicles, and mitochondria that accompany neuronal remodeling, linking structural plasticity to changes in how s-LNv neurons influence their targets
www.cell.com/current-biol...

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...

🧬 PhD Position: Evolutionary & Comparative Genomics 🕷️
Join us at @uni-goettingen.de for a 3-year PhD (65% TV-L E13).
We will investigate the genomic & phenotypic impact of gene duplication across 233 arthropod genomes!
More infos 👇 and s.gwdg.de/eDrAAY
#Evolution #Genomics #Bioinformatics

Glad to see our phoronid genome study featured on the cover of @currentbiology.bsky.social! It shows how genome structure can be used to test competing hypotheses of nested topology and how derived structural changes provide evidence for monophyly.

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Myosin 2 drives actin contractility in fast-crawling species outside of the amorphean lineage Myosin 2-dependent actin contractility—the force that powers cell division and migration in animals, fungi, and other Amorphea—had been previously unknown outside this single eukaryotic group. Guest e...

Our work on Naegleria Myosin 2 is out!

Naegleria encodes 3 Myo2s which contract its actin network—the first evidence of contractile Myo2 outside of Amorphea.
Myo2 is actually widespread in Naegleria's relatives and correlates with fast cell crawling.

Read more: www.cell.com/current-biol...

Pen and ink drawing of a pomelo-sized jelly being held upside down in someone's cupped hands. Handwritten text reads: #InsertAnInvert 41: Blobfest (Danger blob) Cannonball jellyfish (Stomolophus meleagris) "It's like there are flowers in the sea." —Venezuelan fisherman Elvis Morillo about a cannonball jelly invasion off the Caribbean coast in 2024

Pen and ink drawing of a ctenophore. It looks like a large striped grape with two long fringed tails. In real life they are transparent and bioluminescent! Handwritten text reads: The first (possibly last?*) time I dared to call myself a biologist was during my first UWBio department retreat at Friday Harbor Labs on San Juan Island. It was also the first time I saw ctenophores. They will always make me feel brave. #InsertAnlnvert 42 Blobfest (Disco Blob) Pacific Sea Gooseberry (Plurobrachia bachei) *("Ecologist" feels better)

Me to myself this morning, realizing it's mid-month and I hadn't done anything for #InsertAnInvert2024 in 2025 yet: "You're not allowed to do any other hobbies until you draw."

Hydra (Hydra vulgaris) ✨Small but mighty! Hydra can regenerate its entire body, even its head 🧠 A classic model for regeneration, stem cell dynamics, and body axis patterning 📸 Image by Daniel Bressan de Andrade #ModelMonday #DevBio #Regeneration

Re-upping this with a Bluetorial in a shameless act of self-promotion. 1/n

This work on benthic ctenophore systematics (creation of Benthoplanidae) sets up a few planned works, focused on the systematics and evolution of shallow and deep water groups. www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=...

Job Alert! The Institute for Neuro- and Behavioural Biology at the Faculty of Biology @uni-muenster.de invites applications for a Full Professorship (W3) in “Systems Neuroscience” - Highly attractive research environment at the Multiscale Imaging Center. Apply by January 5th. See shorturl.at/VczFp

An excellent opportunity to join the amazing faculty at the Whitney Labs as a tenure-track faculty member at the Assistant or Associate Professor level. Applications due December 1!

explore.jobs.ufl.edu/en-us/job/53...

Sponges back?

Integrative phylogenomics positions sponges at the root of the animal tree. @science.org

#sponges vs #ctenophores

An early Triassic bone bed excavated at 78°N changes the story about how marine life recovered after the most cataclysmic extinction in Earth history ~252 million years ago. The quantity and diversity of marine reptile and amphibian fossils show that these groups had already radiated into complex oceanic ecosystems by ~249 million years ago.

An early Triassic bone bed excavated at 78°N changes the story about how marine life recovered after the most cataclysmic extinction in Earth history ~252 million years ago.

Learn more in this week's issue of Science: https://scim.ag/48bLsGI

Benthoplanidae, a new family of benthic ctenophores (Platyctenida), based on morphological and genetic data The benthic ctenophore Benthoplana meteoris (adults left and bottom, planktonic juveniles to the top right), type species for the genus, which in turn is type for the newly erected family: Benthoplan....

As part of his dissertation, @beziostudio.bsky.social leads a recent paper on benthic ctenophores. New family established based on anatomical observations, mitochondrial genome structure, and sequence data. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Pleased to be a small part of this molecular palaeobiology study by Jialin Wei, led by Marta Álvarez-Presas and Jordi Paps, with help from Davide Pisani. Animals repeatedly used similar genomic solutions to the challenges of terrestrialization @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social @bristolbiosci.bsky.social

The group of @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social took part in the celebrations, contributing to the Museum's open day and jubilee yearbook ✨ Read on to discover the connection between their work and that of neurobiologist and polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen! 🧠 2/2

📖 tinyurl.com/ee742wyd

200 years of neurobiology at the University of Bergen As the University Museum celebrates its 200 years jubilee, researchers reflected on breakthroughs in biological sciences made at UiB and how they relate to today’s research.

In 2025, we celebrate #200years of knowledge at the University of Bergen! An occasion to honor the scientists who came before us and whose legacy we carry on today 🧪🔬 “This story goes from Michael Sars, the vicar and marine zoologist, to Michael Sars, the Centre.” - Prof. Anders Goksøyr ⤵️ 1/2

Woke up at 5.30 this morning. Was fully worth it 🤩 #northernlights #bergen #norway

Awesome to welcome and host @enricodanielloszn.bsky.social for a seminar and (short) visit at @msarscentre.bsky.social in #SunnyBergen, which - sometimes - is only a state of mind. 😉☀️🇳🇴

Slide showing examples of tunicates

Prof De Tomaso standing in front of audience at Michael Sars Centre

Friday seminar treat with a talk by Prof. De Tomaso on the reproductive and regenerative prowesses of colonial ascidians at @msarscentre.bsky.social in #SunnyBergen

You only have one more week to submit your abstract for 'Collectivity in living systems: emergence, function, and evolution' 👉 s.embl.org/ees26-01-bl

Don't miss #EESCollectivity which will explore how collective behaviours arise from fundamental principles across biological systems🦠🐒🧬

Cover of book titled The Tree of Life: solving science's greatest puzzle.

My book 'The Tree of Life' is published in the USA and Canada today.

Available as book, on kindle and as audio.

I would be really grateful for reposts.

www.amazon.com/Tree-Life-So...
www.amazon.ca/Tree-Life-So...

On the importance of marine labs:

"Marine laboratories encourage exploratory and creative thinking... Against the current backdrop of anxiety about the future of science, the scientific community and public need these places now more than ever."

Could not agree more... 🌊 🧪🥼🧫

If you believe either that Franklin discovered the double helix, and / or Watson and Crick stole her data, ask yourself how you know this. Then take a read of this article.

Chemical characterization of C31 sterols from sponges and Neoproterozoic fossil sterane counterparts | PNAS Putative metazoan body fossils from the Precambrian are curiously lacking morphological characteristics that link them unambiguously to extant anim...

Happy to share our last paper in PNAS! Woo-hoo! 🥳
This article supports once more the hypothesis that sponges (and therefore animals) emerged about 100 million years before the Cambrian, and before we find any animal fossils.
www.pnas.org/doi/suppl/10...

Enabling options for review: from training and transparency to author-centered AI tools - openRxiv Peer review is widely viewed as a critical aspect of biomedical communication. Ideally, it provides authors with feedback so they can improve manuscripts and gives readers, particularly nonspecialists...

Excited to launch an openRxiv partnership with the scientist-run AI review service qed (@qedscience.bsky.social), the brainchild of @odedrechavi.bsky.social 1/n

openrxiv.org/enabling-rev...

Only a few days left for abstract submission at the brand new EMBO|EMBL Symposium Collectivity in living systems: emergence, function and evolution. We have stellar speakers in cell, animal collectives & beyond @priscaliberali.bsky.social @icouzin.bsky.social @ricardsole.bsky.social

Join us!

The evolutionary origins of synaptic proteins and their changing roles in different organisms across evolution - Nature Reviews Neuroscience Recent studies have shed further light on the evolutionary origins of chemical synapses, In this Review, Colgren and Burkhardt explore how ancient proteins were co-opted into functional assemblies and...

The evolutionary origins of synaptic proteins and their changing roles in different organisms across evolution — a Review by Jeffrey J. Colgren & Pawel Burkhardt

@jeffcolgren.bsky.social @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social

#neuroscience #neuroskyence

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