M. Brent Hawkins

The proventriculus lacks stem cells, but compensates for age-related cell loss via endoreplication Ben Ewen-Campen Perrimon Lab, Harvard Medical School Fly Meeting 2026

I'M RUNNING FOR STATE REP!

🪰If you’re at #Dros26 and are interested in the fly foregut AND/OR want to support scientists in elected office, please come to talk Friday at 9:45am AND/OR support my run for State Representative in MA :)

www.benforward3.com/blog/2026/3/...

Join us this next Friday *the 13th* 👻 👻 to hear us talking about bones and cartilages in development and evolution 🐟 🐠 🦴

🐟👀 SFSU Biology seminar — Thu Mar 5
2–3pm | SEC 116
Dr. Patricia Schneider (LSU): “Split Screens: Exploring Vision through the Eyes of the Four-Eyed Fish.”
Student time: 3–3:30pm. Come by!

Super excited about these results and new system.

Mapping, Expression, Loss-of-Function

I'm floored by how this locus seem to integrate all the spatial info to sketch the minute details of the phenotype, and how this is prone to evol tweaks

Large hyperdiverged haplotype without an inversion.

Neil H. Shubin has been elected as the next NAS President! A leading evolutionary biologist and science communicator, Shubin will succeed Marcia McNutt on July 1. The Academy also named Cherry Murray as International Secretary and elected new councilors. Read more: www.nasonline.org/news/2026_pr...

🧪🔬🧬Beautiful work! Many people have long wondered what the impact of actinodin loss would be on fin development.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

It’s out! 🐟 We compared three regeneration superstars—axolotl, zebrafish, and Polypterus—to ask how animals regrow limbs and fins. We find shared core processes, and other programs fine-tuned by evolution in surprising, lineage-specific ways. tinyurl.com/mpftkn7y

YouTube video by Be Smart Everything I Thought I Knew About Flavor Was Wrong

@pbs.org has had my whole heart since I was little little, so it is very surreal to be writing for a PBS Digital Studios show! Here is my first episode of Be Smart:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SBX...

Thank you @drjoehanson.bsky.social & team! My nose knowledge now knows no bounds 👃

Very happy to share that this paper is now online on @currentbiology.bsky.social !! 🥳🧪 Check out the final published verion here: www.cell.com/current-biol...
#mimuluspropaganda

🚨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🧵

Toto, I have a feeling we aren't in Actinopterygii anymore

It's out, Minos transgenesis in the pantry moth by
@donyaniyaz.bsky.social
@lucalivraghi.bsky.social

High efficient, glowing eye and silk gland markers

peerj.com/articles/202...
@peerj.bsky.social

Neil Shubin (1) | Collège de France

The talks (in english) can be accessed from the @college-de-france.fr website. A great journey through ‘Our ancestors the fish’, from 380 Mio years ago to their hidden presence inside ourselves. Lessons #1 and #2 👇🏼
www.college-de-france.fr/en/agenda/gu...
www.college-de-france.fr/en/agenda/gu...

Pretty stoked that our article got the cover of the latest issue of @journalofanatomy.bsky.social!

Check it out here: doi.org/10.1111/joa....

Extremely cool to see very different systems potentially point to similar genetic constraints or developmental biases leading to morphological variation. Now we need a fish example!

How do four-eyed fish see above & underwater? 🌤️🌊 Our new preprint reveals how Anableps rewired its retina for dual vision- evolution at work 👁️👁️ Kudos to @perezlouise.bsky.social @josanesousa.bsky.social @keylapruett.bsky.social + team!
🔗 tinyurl.com/3a8r9xy5

Happy to have contributed to this big story. We present new genome assemblies, genus-wide complementation and allele-specific expression analyses in hybrids between zebrafish and closely related Danio species with divergent pigment patterns. A vertebrate model genus for basic comparative biology.

UMAP of single nucleus RNAseq dataset of Polypterus fin regeneration

Hey Regen folks 👋 Excited to share that our single-nucleus RNA-seq dataset for Polypterus fin regeneration is now live at the Broad Institute portal! Dive in here: tinyurl.com/5bck22jx
Big thanks to the team for making this happen—looking forward to seeing what you all discover!

The regulation and evolution of proportion is a classic challenge in biology. This is exciting work into the genetic and developmental basis of proportionality using a very cool model. Congrats Ceri! 👏🧪🧬🐭

Vertebral skeletal diversity in mammals is remarkable. How do the differences between vertebral size and shape develop and evolve? See how we tackled this question in our paper published in @natcomms.nature.com today!

Tomorrow wednesday October 15th at 11am, first seminar of @neilshubin.bsky.social , guest Professor @college-de-france.fr on ‘The history we share with fish’. Come, have a seat and enjoy learning where we come from. Free knowledge, no registration🤘

🚨 🚨 Science alert on a #FluorescenceFriday; check my latest paper published in @genetics-gsa.bsky.social where I integrated comparative tissue-specific transcriptomics and speciation genomics to discover two novel craniofacial genes behind pupfish extreme jaw development! tinyurl.com/craniofacial...

This is Hilma af Klint coded Esoteric Knowledge

Found my halloween costume this is terrifying

Hello #fish 🐟 🐠 researchers and PIs of tomorrow! We would be excited to sponsor you for an Ecology, Evolution and Behavior (EEB) Presidential #Postdoc Fellowship application @michiganstateu.bsky.social. Application deadline is Nov 10, so get in touch soom!

#EndlessFishMostBeautiful

Dual Bmp-negative feedback loops modulate function of both AER and ZPA to buffer and constrain postaxial digit number | PNAS Several lines of evidence indicate that posterior (postaxial) digit number in tetrapod vertebrates is constrained to the pentadactyl state by inter...

transport yourself to the late 90s with this really cool paper on digit number regulation by Shh and BMP, ZPA and AER. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

It is beautiful 🥲

We will be taking phD students this round!! Apply to our @mpi-cbg.de phD programme and #growwithus

My favourite figure from our new paper on lateral line development in Sterlet sturgeon (doi.org/10.7554/eLif...). In this one, we use targeted gene knockout and show that in (mosaic) absence of FoxG1, ectopic electroreceptors develop instead of mechanosensory hair cells!

#fishsci #evo-devo #CRISPR

A headline reading: "You can hold on to your butts thanks to DNA that evolved in fish"

The paper: the genetic program that enables digit formation in limbs is derived from the system that drives cformation of the cloaca.

Me, the headline writer: