Elysa Ng 🌻

Orangutan looking at my labubu in #StLouisZoo

Sometimes I am reading a paper and I see it was published in 2018. For a moment I think it's pretty recent until I realize its almost 8 years ago 🙁

Sonic hedgehog is not a limb morphogen but acts as a trigger to specify all digits in mice Limb patterning by Sonic hedgehog (Shh), via either graded spatial or temporal signal integration, is a paradigm for “morphogen” function, yet how Shh…

Finally had a chance to read this beautiful paper from Susan Mackem's lab. It's interesting that even well-established paradigms, like Sonic Hedgehog's role as a traditional morphogen in limb development, can be proven wrong over time.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I always feel like I am opening Pokemon TCGP cards whenever I am imaging and looking for a mutant....

(2/2)

Back in 2022, I drew this comic exploring the history of whale meat consumption for a course I took back in Notre Dame. (1/2)

a close up of a cat 's face with a bow tie on . ALT: a close up of a cat 's face with a bow tie on .

Long successful day of imaging some immunostaining ☺️☺️ Some of the pictures are for sure going to be on the manuscript!!

I'm thrilled to see this beautiful work by recent Prince lab members Theresa Christiansen and Vish Venkataraman now in print! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Rocket Frog, Damselfish, and Bandicoots: The Species Declared Extinct in 2025 • The Revelator This year’s list includes a notable extinction caused by climate change — and several caused by introduced predators.

Rocket Frog, Damselfish, and Bandicoots: The Species Declared Extinct in 2025 • The Revelator

My F1s that I set up for the first time instantly gave me some eggs 😤 And to think the wildtype fish from the facility took 3-4 tries before they were willing to breed, when they got us new younger stock

I hope that at some point in 2026, I can go to Japan and also whale watch in Cape Cod 🙂‍↕️

How can structures at the vertex of 3 cells have effects at the tissue level?

Join me, @laura-rustarazo.bsky.social, to explore how tricellular junctions (TCJs) act as local tension sensors and regulators of global tissue organization. 🧵⤵️ doi.org/10.1126/scie...

An ancient genome duplication event drives the development and evolution of spinnerets in spiders A genome duplication event during the Silurian played a crucial role in the evolutionary emergence of spinnerets in spiders.

More than 400 million years ago, during the Silurian Period, an evolutionary event led to the later emergence of spiders’ spinnerets—the abdominal organs that make silk—according to new #ScienceAdvances research. https://scim.ag/4sFX3pJ

a treasure chest with a light shining through it ALT: a treasure chest with a light shining through it

PHENOTYPE!!!!! Today is a big W in my project

Ageing rewires the body’s tolerance to infection In life-threatening sepsis, the same signalling pathway that protects young mice from succumbing to organ dysfunction exacerbates damage and lethality in older animals.

How does ageing influence the way our bodies handle infection?

go.nature.com/4sMZuqW

Screened and found my F1 fish found for this new different line 😈

Deep conservation of cis-regulatory elements and chromatin organization in echinoderms uncover ancestral regulatory features of animal genomes Nature Ecology & Evolution - Analysis of the 3D chromatin architecture and cis-regulatory elements in a sea urchin and a sea star reveals mechanisms of 3D chromatin organization in echinoderms...

Our work on the evolution of the regulatory genome of echinoderms is now out in @natecoevo.nature.com. Led by my former PhD Marta Magri, Danila Voronov & Saoirse Foley. Great collaboration of Arnone, Hinman & Maeso labs, started long time ago with our missed José Luis Gomez-Skarmeta: rdcu.be/eXX8l

As it goes with some experiments where we don't know the answer, my PI and me likes to do a little bet on if we will see a phenotype or not after I am done staining this... My PI is definitely more willing to gamble than I am 😀

My PI did his magic and helped me get the ndr2.2 fish to breed (they are old and I havent been able to get them to lay since November). Well now there are 12 embryos and we are praying that at least 1 will be a mutant 🐟 May the zebrafish Gods bless us tomorrow, we shall see

Our research on reptile pigmentation is featured on the cover of Genetics 🧬🦎

We uncover how mutations in TYR, SLC24A5, and OCA2 shape hypomelanism in snakes & geckos, revealing modular and flexible melanogenesis.
🔗 academic.oup.com/genetics/art...

Today i discovered my height of 5'2 was actually perfect to do bench work without straining my back. My lab mates proportions and height means they have to bend down at an angle and crane their necks 😭 I guess I can't stay mad when the scope chairs keep on changing in setting....

Forest the baby Orangutan was so fun to watch. I saw his Mama build a straw nest, carefully lay out a sheet, and call him over for a nap. But the baby didn't want to nap and kept on destroying her nest, and she finally gave up.

Visited St Louis zoo again yesterday and got to see the amur leopard and cheetah cubs :) They are so cute! Sadly the big ungulates and the asian elephants were all not in their enclosures. I imagine it was cold. I wish I got to see the baby asian elephant again but next time

American Robin in his full-on winter plumage in St Louis! He was big backing the berries and a female robin who I suspect was his girlfriend was also hanging out nearby.

Thinking if I should take the L and just buy an Adobe Illustrator subscription for myself to make figures or try to bug WashU to give me a free one (idk if they do that)

Cartoon of Pax9 expression (purple) during facial development in mouse (left) and zebrafish (right). Text: Mammals. Pax9 is expressed In tooth-forming mesenchyme around the mouth. Required for tooth formation in mouse and human. Fish. Pax9 is also expressed in oral mesenchyme in fishes. But many fish do not form oral teeth. Vestigial expression or divergent function? Result: pax9 is required for formation of upper jaw bones and barbels in zebrafish, but dispensable for non-oral teeth. Support ancestral function in building peri-oral structures from condensed mesenchyme rather than a specific requirement for teeth

#DBfeature 🐠

Pax9 has a broader role in initiating development of mesenchymal structures around the mouth during zebrafish development

By Sandhya Paudel, Sarah McLeod, Stefani Gjorcheska, Lindsey Barske

tinyurl.com/yc3jfpux

So our fish facility mixed up and lost our mutant fish line that we imported 🥲 My PI broke the news to me by saying "there is a little bit of a curveball to our schedule....."

I'm trying to breed Chocolate/Cinnamon back into my lines for this silly cat breeding game but its so hell 😭 I can't remember who might be carrying the recessive

I love seeing some awesome work done on Ciona this year in dev bio 🥺 I can't wait to see more. Here at St Louis we have two Ciona labs so far, and they're doing some cool stuff

I'm going to a weird phase in my life where I'm really craving anchovies and sardines and mackeral aka stinky oily fish. The stinkier the better..... Even better with some garlic, olive oil, tomatoes and capers..........