Stephanie Woo

Thanks Vishank! Hope things are going well at Duke!

Calling all postdocs! Applications are open for Dept. of Molecular Biosciences 3rd Trailblazers Postdoctoral Symposium @utaustin.bsky.social. Come to Austin, meet your peers, showcase your work. Application is easy and all expenses are paid! Spread the word!

tinyurl.com/yw7ffjn9

🔍 Seniors, thinking about going to STEM grad school or medical school?

A post-baccalaureate program can help you build research experience, take classes, and even earn a stipend along the way!

Learn what a postbac can do for your STEM path:
🔗 cientificolatino.com/why_postbac

And new QSB grad student German Paniagua will examine how CIL changes (or doesn’t???) as endodermal cells transition from dispersal to convergence movements. 6/6

Physics grad student Nolan Brown in Ajay Gopinathan’s group is looking at whether endodermal cell dispersal can be described by hyperuniformity and motility-induced phase separation. 5/6

This paper has pushed my lab in lots of new and unexpected directions. Things to stay tuned for: Jesselynn is working on ways to use topological data analysis to assess morphogenesis defects in collaboration with applied mathematician Mikahl Banwarth-Kuhn. 4/6

Jaxson Ramirez, an undergrad, performed the @hcrimaging.bsky.social fluorescent in situs of EphA expression. We wish him best of luck as he starts pharmacy school at UCSD! 3/6

This paper was truly elevated by our computational collaborator Tom Wyatt. We owe our collaboration to @vgzt2021.bsky.social (Tom got in touch after I gave a talk). We also received early support and feedback from the Finding Your Inner Modeler meetings. 2/6

Author spotlight thread!
This study was heroically led by @qsb-uc-merced.bsky.social grad student Jesselynn LaBelle who consistently pushed for our work to be quantitatively rigorous. She is looking for a postdoc position! Her interests are mathematical biology, image analysis, and microscopy. 1/6

Finally, we used a combination of transcriptomics, pharmacological inhibition, and CRISPR gene editing to show that endodermal cells are likely using EphA receptors to recognize each other and initiate CIL.

Please have a read and tell us what you think! 9/9

We experimentally validated the model’s predictions by using DN RhoA expression to block CIL, which caused endodermal cells to form irregular clumps. Notably, first author Jesselynn LaBelle developed a way to quantify these irregular patterns using Voronoi analysis and Delaunay triangulation. 8/9

But in simulations without CIL, cells formed irregular, “clumpy” patterns. Funny enough, the model also suggested that other parameters like directional persistence didn’t make as much of a difference, contrary to previous reports, including, uh, mine (doi.org/10.1083/jcb....). 7/9

Tom Wyatt modeled cells migrating along the surface of a sphere, as endodermal cells do in a gastrula-stage zebrafish embryo. His model predicted that when CIL is active, cells will spontaneously form a uniform polka dot-like pattern similar to what endodermal cells do in “real life.” 6/9

So, endodermal cells undergo canonical, RhoA-dependent CIL. That’s neat and all, but we were puzzled about why these cells would put so much effort into initially avoiding each other if eventually they’ll come back together (aka, the Romantic Comedy Model of Endoderm Morphogenesis). 5/9

A molecular hallmark of CIL is activation of the small GTPase RhoA. Indeed, when we expressed a dominant-negative RhoA, we saw attenuated endodermal CIL responses. 4/9

We noticed that during dispersal, endodermal cells seem to actively avoid each other. Cell collisions consistently triggered a set of responses, including membrane retraction and reorientation of the leading edge, that is characteristic of contact inhibition of locomotion (CIL). 3/9

During zebrafish gastrulation, endodermal cells ingress and then quickly disperse across the embryo, forming a strikingly uniform “salt-and-pepper” pattern (zfin.org/ZDB-IMAGE-06...). These dispersed cells will later converge together to form an epithelium, but that’s a story for another time. 2/9

New paper alert! We report that #zebrafish endodermal cells use contact inhibition of locomotion as a dispersal and spacing mechanism. It’s a neat example of large-scale patterns emerging from local interactions using a simple set of rules. Summary in the thread below 1/9
doi.org/10.1016/j.is...

***Important***
BIO will host a Virtual Office Hour (VOH) on Thurs, Dec 18th, 2025, 1 - 2 pm ET.

In this VOH, we’ll be joined by leadership to outline updates to NSF’s review process & share news relevant to all areas of research funded by BIO.

Register here: nsf.zoomgov.com/webinar/regi...

Why do the instructions for reviewing article proofs always sound like ransom notes?

Oh, also, good news coming soon....

Here we go. Its ALL #NIHGrant applications. Dec 8 is the new deadline. And a one page prelim data update will be accepted for all May Council submissions. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

About a year ago (before I knew better), I got a decently written email from an undergrad, so I invited them for an interview. But the person who showed up clearly had no idea what my lab does. So if you do use a chatbot to “help” you write an email, at the very least please read what it spits out!

Yeah I was gonna say, I suspect a lot of these emails are the result of prompting an LLM with something like “write a cover letter based on this lab’s website.”

YouTube video by StoneRosesVEVO The Stone Roses - Fools Gold

RIP Mani
youtu.be/4zE0svnmau8?...

2 positions up for grabs in the Buckley lab - join us for some fun with optogenetics, zebrafish, neural tubes, biomechanics and cake

SAVE THE DATE! Stoked to organize the 2026 Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting with @rashmi-priya.bsky.social, @lowelab.bsky.social, and Shelbi Russell. Come learn about Biomedicine, Biomechanics, and the Biosphere, August 24-28, 2026. Registration dates, etc., coming soon! Please RT

Advanced grad students + postdocs: apply for the 2026 #kitpqbio summer course, "Physical Principles of Morphogenesis in Plants and Animals," at buff.ly/OXXMKEv. Apply by Feb. 1.
Course directors Adrienne Roeder (Cornell) and Sebastian Streichan (UCSB)

Announcing the Inaugural Fluorescence Advanced Imaging Research Workshop
sites.uci.edu/aimlfdworksh... A joint effort between UC Berkeley and UC Irvine, bringing together the cutting edge talks of AIM and the intensive hands-on experience of the LFD Workshop. #microscopy #fluorescence

If you’re headed to #sfn25 come by our session on cilia in the brain! Our goal: convince you all cilia in the brain are as cool as we think they are!

Yay, so glad to see this story is out! Congrats to everyone!