Grocott Lab

I am SO incredibly excited to announce the launch of a global list of Inspiring Black Scientists. You can use this list to nominate and connect with researchers. Please share and join us in highlighting these outstanding scientists for #BlackHistoryMonth and beyond!

www.wiley.com/en-us/resear...

The frustrating thing about working with people who do not understand the scientific method is when they want you to prove their hypothesis... What they want to believe.

The way science *SHOULD WORK* is that you form a hypothesis and then work like hell to try and break that hypothesis.

The University of Sheffield is hiring:
Research Associate in Developmental Biology

This developing quail embryo looks like it's thinking fiery thoughts for #FluorescenceFriday 🐣🔥🧪. Imaged by the fantastic @vanderspuy.bsky.social

A cartoon with a woman in a labcoat looking in a microscope saying "The best part of science is knowing, for a moment, something that nobody else in the world knows."

Still true

Excited to share our recent publication in which we identify new roles for neural crest cells in directing heart development, and new pathological mechanisms underpinning congenital heart disease!

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

These are one of the many ways @biologists.bsky.social and its flagship journals support our community. Take advantage of them and then consider publishing with there, rather than in the fifth step-down journal of the robber barons

Job alert🚨I am advertising a 2-year postdoctoral position to work on the mathematics of plant morphogenesis @mpipz.bsky.social. Candidates with interests in mathematical modelling, mechanics, or biophysics are strongly encouraged to apply. 🌱Reposts are appreciated!

jobs.mpipz.mpg.de/jobposting/4...

Identifying enhancers in the chicken embryo.

#DBfeature 🐣

With the rise of omics data, identifying tissue-specific enhancers is easier than ever—but validation is key. Ruth M. Williams discusses why the chicken embryo is the ideal in vivo sandbox for testing human regulatory elements in our recent review.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The amount of truly stunning retinal research in avians coming out of Europe lately is making me jealous.

Such cooooool work.

I learned dynamical systems theory for the embryos, I learned PDEs for the embryos, I’ll learn stat mech for the embryos, I learned Julia for the embryos, might need to learn Java for the embryos … 80% of what I read is for the embryos …

Excitation and emission spectra

mSumireF a Monomeric Violet Fluorescent Protein:
pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....

There is still over a week left to apply.
Please send your documents to maik.bischoff@uni-muenster.de

Marr's three levels for embryonic development: information, dynamical systems, gene networks Developmental patterning comprises processes that range from purely instructed, where external signals specify cell fates, to fully self-organized, where spatial patterns emerge autonomously through…

Throughout this work, we found it really helpful to organize our thinking along 'Marr's three levels of analysis':
1. the computational problem
2. the algorithmic solution
3. biophysical implementation

Check out our review laying out this conceptual framework here: buff.ly/NE4JEOA

How can cells use information from neighboring cells to improve the spatial precision of morphogen patterns? 🤔

We show that cells can gain positional information by "talking" to their neighbors - how much depends critically on spatial correlations of the patterns.

buff.ly/w56OUJT

@devdynamics.bsky.social Welcome to Bluesky Developmental Dynamics, added to the Developmental Biology starter pack II.

You can also patch in to more #DevBio folks by checking out the first Developmental Biology start pack here:

go.bsky.app/M5AgJhn

Morphogenesis & Organogenesis!
Part 1 (full) in the comments 👇

Comment if you'd like to be added (regardless of age or career stage!)

Please post your own biology-related starter packs using #BioStarterPacks

🧬🔬🪰🐟🐁🌱

“This work highlights how dynamical systems theory and nonequilibrium thermodynamics provide powerful analytical techniques to study biological complexity.”

iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

This is now a published peer-reviewed paper, in which we show, for the first time (to my knowledge) an interaction and co-operation between SALL4 and BAF (SWI/SNF). Together, they induce neural crest fate early on, by priming thousands of enhancers in the neuroectoderm.
doi.org/10.1242/dev....

Vascular development in the early chick embryo

#DBfeature 🐣

Unravelling early hematoendothelial development through the chick model: Insights and future perspectives

by Lydia Pouncey, Gi Fay Mok @gifaymok.bsky.social

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I've spent all day struggling to write a single page of a popular science article. I bang away at a word processor; give up; start diagramming on paper. Take some notes; draft a few sentences in pen; return to the computer...and very slowly I figure out what I was trying to say in the first place.

UK to rejoin EU’s Erasmus student exchange programme Exclusive: British students will be able to participate in EU-wide scheme from January 2027, sources say

Thank goodness for that. Something that shouldn’t have happened, happened. And now it’s set to unhappen. Great for students, great for research in general and great for Britain.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

Medfly

UEA campus

Please share 📢

We have a Postdoc position available here @uniofeastanglia.bsky.social to develop innovative genetic control strategies for insect agricultural pests in collaboration with @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social

vacancies.uea.ac.uk/vacancies/19...

Keeping up with the neighbours: local synchronisation of cell fate decisions during development - EMBO Reports Even before the advent of multicellular life, unicellular creatures would communicate with their neighbours to coordinate their behaviours. Multicellular organisms have the particular challenge of orc...

Hello, here is a review I wrote about how cells sometimes try to synchronise with surrounding cells so that they can do a good job of building tissues during development. It is called "Keeping up with the neighbours"

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

#DevBio 🧪

At first glance, looks like a Gray–Scott reaction-diffusion

But it’s a fertilized starfish 🥚: proteins self-organizing into spiral waves across the membrane

Same dynamics seen in ❤️/🧠/🌊, even quantum fluids. Universality in action!

#ComplexSystems

news.mit.edu/2020/growth-...

An image of a whole frog eye that has been labelled with a photoreceptor marker (cyan) and a nuclear marker (orange). The retinal is the striped tissue and the lens is the large round tissue with the orange interior. You can also see the optic nerve at the top middle of the picture (12:00).

Frog eye, frog eye. Can I have a confocal microscope to play on for 12 hrs a day again please? 👉👈🥺 🐸

Want to image cells protecting the embryo during early development? We're hiring! 1 Postdoc, 1 PhD student, and 1 Research Technician. Come to Barcelona! www.embryobioimaging.com

Brian Cox, Madeline Lancaster and fellow panel member sat on stage with microphones.

Can we build a human?

Madeline Lancaster joined Brian Cox & a panel of experts for the @crick.ac.uk & BBC Studios podcast A Question of Science, to answer this question.

Find the episode here: www.lnk.to/AQOSBioengin...

#LMBintheNews

@cellbiol-mrclmb.bsky.social @lancasterlab.bsky.social

Reciprocal interactions between EMT and BMP signalling drive collective cell invasion. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.02.691808v1

Development's Pathway to Independence Programme Our grants support and encourage the sharing of knowledge throughout the community by facilitating international collaboration, event attendance and the organisation of scientific meetings, conference...

Applications are open for @dev-journal.bsky.social 2026 Pathway to Independence (PI) programme, supporting postdocs applying for group leader positions:

Mentoring
Profile raising
Leadership training
Network building

Spread the word...

www.biologists.com/grants/devel...