Joanna Smeeton

The new @IZFS News Splash is out! IZFS.org/newssplash/news-splash-issue-21-winter-2026 . Check it out for a SCZI meeting report, Alternatives to Academia (alliance management), Science Spotlight articles, member news and more!

a man in a suit says check this out in yellow letters ALT: a man in a suit says check this out in yellow letters

For #BlackHistoryMonth and International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we wanted to highlight a few organizations you should follow and support! We'll link their websites, be sure to check them out!

Thinking about EZM2026 in Vienna? 🐟
Travel grants are now open for students & ECRs.
7–11 July 2026 | Deadline: March 15
Hope to see many of you there! @ezsociety.bsky.social #zebrafish

Congratulations Dr. Voigt!! 🎉🎉

A gorgeous evening here in NYC

Working with #zebrafish you might expect us all to be from the Water Tribe, but representatives from all nations of the world of #Avatarthelastairbender turned out to represent the Smeeton lab at our Columbia Stem Cell Hallowe'en party this year!

Chlorine in the water

Speaking science in a fractured world: making truth land when facts alone cannot

A Perspective by @rebeccacalisi.bsky.social, @kaliceaphd.bsky.social, Jamy Peng, @spiraldoc.bsky.social & @rogerslabucd.bsky.social on how to combat scientific misinformation

journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

New York Cures – NY-CURESNew York Cures Website NY-CURES is working to advance bold, state-backed investment in biomedical research—on the scale of successful initiatives in California and Texas—to grow New York’s leadership in science, innovation, and health.

The BIGGEST impact you can have with 1 minute today ⏱️

Add your name to show NY is ready for a statewide biomedical institute.

CA’s CIRM & TX’s CPRIT proved it works—billions returned, jobs created, cures accelerated. Let’s do even better for New York.

✍️ www.nycures.org/

Dynamic cell fate plasticity and tissue reintegration drive functional adult synovial joint regeneration after complete resection - Nature Communications Joint injury and disease are leading causes of disability, with mammalian joints exhibiting poor regenerative capacity. Here the authors showed that after loss of a whole joint, adult zebrafish regenerate de novo articular cartilage, ligament, and synovium into a complex joint organ.

📣🧪 Read our latest #research on joint regeneration in #zebrafish, published today in @natcomms.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41... @columbiauniversity.bsky.social

🍾🧪The end of an era! Today we said so long to Dr. Troy Anderson. Troy was the very first person to join me in the Smeeton lab. He just defended his PhD and is off to start his postdoc next month. We will miss you Troy!! #proudPI @troy-anderson.bsky.social #zebrafish

Register now for an ORS Tendon Section #WebinarWednesday on Sept 24, 12 PM CST, A Tendon-cy to Heal: Regenerating Tendons & Ligaments in Zebrafish. Hear from Thomas Schilling, Jenna Galloway & Joanna Smeeton on the latest #tendon & ligament regeneration. 🔗 ors.memberclicks.net/ten092425web#/

Thank you Kevin for all that you have done to get our community schooling together online. I really appreciate all your hard work and engaging posts!! See you over on the Slack channel to keep the conversations going.

Due to their aquatic environment, #zebrafish are perfect for small molecule drug screens. Many drugs have been repurposed for novel treatments such as COX inhibitors in leukemia & glucocorticoids in long QT syndrome. For more, read this Nature review ($): doi.org/10.1038/nrd4... #ZebrafishFunFacts 🧪

Revascularization of coronary endothelial cells during zebrafish heart regeneration. Credit to @harrisonlab.bsky.social. #ZebrafishZunday 🧪

Some exciting news! NCBI has finished the annotation pipeline for our new #zebrafish reference sequence GRCz12tu:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/refseq/annot...

This is a big step up in data depth and quality and should be super helpful going forward.

We are excited to announce our next issue of #NewsSplash has been published! To keep up with all the latest #zebrafish news, be sure to check it out here: www.izfs.org/newssplash/n...

Congratulations Olena!!

Congratulations Peter!!

Happy birthday to Canadian medical researcher & #biochemist Maud Menten (1879-1960). 🧪🐡👩🏼‍🔬 #histscj Not only was she an author of Michaelis-Menten equation for enzyme kinetics, she invented the azo-dye coupling for alkaline phosphatase, 1st example of enzyme histochemistry, still used in imaging of 🧵

Heading back to NYC full of fresh ideas and new questions to explore after a wonderful visit with the fantastic faculty and trainees @cuanschutz.bsky.social Thanks again for the invitation to share our work on craniofacial joint regeneration!

Abstract submissions for the 19th IZFC are now open! Registration to the conference is required to submit an abstract. Register and submit here today! www.izfs.org/education/19...

NIH slashes overhead payments for research, sparking outrage and lawsuit Move to cut indirect cost rate to 15% could cost universities billions of dollars

Breaking news: 22 states are suing to block NIH’s cutting of indirect costs.

See our updated story on the Friday night news and its aftermath. scim.ag/4hTJQ6v

These opening sessions talks were exactly what I needed after the week we have had.

"We need eachother more than ever before" #ORS2025

1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%.

I want to provide some context on what that means and why it matters.

grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

ZFIN is now on Bluesky!

White House pauses all federal grants, sparking confusion The Trump administration has put a hold on all federal financial grants and loans, affecting tens of billions of dollars in payments.

I think some people hear “grants” and think that without them, scientists and government workers just have less stuff to play with at work. But grants fund salaries for students, academics, researchers, and people who work in all areas of public service.

“Pausing” grants means people don’t eat.

Our Ears Share a Common Ancestry with Fish Gills The genes that build the cartilage of fish gills were repurposed to build the cartilage in mammals’ outer ears

Nice article in Scientific American about our work on outer ear evolution and a complimentary study from the lab of Maksim Plikus on role of unique lipids in mammalian ear cartilage. www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-...

Sox10 is required for systemic initiation of bone mineralization

Read this #OpenAccess Research Article by Stefani Gjorcheska, Lindsey Barske & co. @cincyresearch.bsky.social :
https://journals.biologists.com/dev/article/152/2/dev204357/365396/Sox10-is-required-for-systemic-initiation-of-bone