Eudald Pascual

Best buddies? More like budding buddies 🪼👯‍♀️✨ Six stages of asexual budding in Hydra to generate new genetically identical individuals (clones). 🟣: collagen 🟢: stem cells. 📸 Image by Ben Cox #FluorescentFriday

On the hunt for sea cucumbers on board the G.O. Sars Postdoctoral researcher Emily Claereboudt recently joined an Institute of Marine Research (IMR) expedition in the North Sea. Her goal - collect as many sea cucumbers as possible to find out how they c...

Postdoc Emily Claereboudt @emclaereboudt.bsky.social recently joined an expedition to the North Sea led by our colleagues at the Institute of Marine Research 🌊 She tells us about her experience collecting sea cucumbers in stormy weather for her #MSCA chemosensation project 🤩⤵️

Ctenophore research points to earlier origins of brain-like structures New 3D reconstructions of a key sensory organ in ctenophores reveal an unexpected structural and functional complexity. The findings suggest that an elementary brain may have already appeared in our m...

New article from the @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social group highlighted on the cover of Science Advances 🤩👏 The work, led by @annaferraioli.bsky.social, describes in unprecedented details the structure of the comb jelly's aboral organ (AO) 🧵 1/4

Two complementary articles from the lab of Anming Meng and Katie McDole discussing the history and biology of organizer in 🐟, 🐸, and 🐭. Even after more than 100 years since its discovery, major questions remain, especially for mammals.
doi.org/10.1016/j.cd...
doi.org/10.1016/j.cd...

Congratulations Anna! Amazing story! 🥳

Thrilled to share that our preprint has been accepted in Science Advances! Grateful to an incredible team & collaborators.

Link: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

👏 @annaferraioli.bsky.social @maikekittelmann.bsky.social
@msarscentre.bsky.social @erc.europa.eu @hfspo.bsky.social #ctenophores

I’m beyond excited to see our work published in Science Advances! 🎉

Deeply grateful to everyone involved — and especially to @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social for the great mentorship ✨

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🤩to see this behemoth of a story out !
Pushed by @nikobiota.bsky.social & the Amazing @embl.org AML Team (Tina, Michael, Paulina) and in Co. with the Best #science #family you can dream of!

This truck was #home, for weeks in a row & in my heart for a lifetime.

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

Figure showing 3 panels,(A) a picture of annelid Capitella teleta on black background, (B) a cladogram with major biological model organisms showing the phylogenetic position of C. teleta and (C) schematics of the 10 chromosomes of C. teleta

New from @chemamd.bsky.social lab @qmulsbbs.bsky.social Collab with Elaine Seaver, @baxevanislab.bsky.social @neva-meyer.bsky.social @abhinavsur.bsky.social

New chromosome-level assembly for Capitella teleta 🪱

academic.oup.com/gbe/advance-...

#DevBio
#WormWednesday
@genomebiolevol.bsky.social

The two co-first authors full of youthful enthusiasm before carrying on the study (they have barely aged since).

First things first: big congrats to Núria Ros-Rocher and Josean Reyes-Rivera, co-1st authors of a manuscript that quickly became known as "RRRR et al" They really carried the work. And thanks to our village of coauthors, without whom we could never have combined field and lab experiments so tightly.

Final version @nature.com of our paper describing unconventional multicellular development in a choanoflagellate inhabiting an extreme environment. A ton of new data since the first @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social preprint (which we've kept updating).

A brief 🧵 (carried over from the old place)

Excited to see this story out as a preprint ✨

Clonal-aggregative multicellularity tuned by salinity in a choanoflagellate - Nature The choanoflagellate Choanoeca flexa forms motile and contractile cell monolayers purely clonally, purely aggregatively or through a combination of both processes depending on environmental condi...

Clonal-aggregative multicellularity tuned by salinity in a choanoflagellate www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

From our new paper out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social: www.cell.com/current-biol... w/ @neurofishh.bsky.social @gkafetzis.bsky.social @denilsson.bsky.social

Looking across animals, the vertebrate eye is an obvious outlier. Why is it so different that other highly visual animals?

Algal Swimming Patterns Change with Light Intensity In response to changes in illumination, a swimming microorganism reverses the direction of its circular trajectory by tilting its flagella’s planes of motion.

Some algae swim in circles, by exercising exquisite control of their breaststroke. And they switch direction under light of different intensity. Here's how. (No one is yet quite sure why.)
physics.aps.org/articles/v19...

Two funded PhD positions investigating the evolution of sarcomeres @ibdm.bsky.social in @biancah0406.bsky.social and our lab, together with @cnidevo.bsky.social - Interested to explore how similar or different Jellyfish sarcomeres are to Drosophila or human ones?
www.ibdm.univ-amu.fr/ibdm_job/2-a...

Introducing a Clytia planula cell atlas, and demonstrating broad-level relations with medusa cells via another updated atlas. By @annaferraioli.bsky.social with @juliarmateu.bsky.social and collaborators in a project led by @rcply.bsky.social @biodev-vlfr.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Evolution of monoamine reception and its role in cellular contractility.

How do #sponges coordinate their bodies despite lacking neurons and true muscles?

We show that sponges use monoamines to control water flow in their canals — reminiscent of how adrenaline regulates blood vessels.

My PhD story, now on BioRxiv:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
#Evolution

Development builds... But it also breaks!

Planarians split to reproduce. Hydra tears open a mouth. Embryos fracture to make cavities.

Failure? No. Fracture is essential to development.

Our new review on fracture physics and its uses in development:

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

We‘re looking for a motivated Master student to join our team!

Do you want to optogenetically control metabolic activity to see how metabolism affects patterning and morphogenesis? 💡🧫🧬🔬

Then please apply!
#optogenetics #metabolism #devbio #hESCs

Please RT. Thank you!🙏

A 🆕 #Ichthyosporea story
Led by@margaridaaraujo.bsky.social, in Co. @gautamdey.bsky.social & @hiralshah.bsky.social+🔥team across @embl.org & @sciencesunige.bsky.social
We finally have a look at what #microtubules are doing during #cellularization in #Sphaeroforma
▶️ tinyurl.com/MTSARC
#ProtistsOnSky

New deadline is Feb 10, very close still‼️ join us for a rich experience and opportunities to interact with fellow developmental biologists, as well as journal editors and representatives of funding agencies. 😉 Good for early career researchers to learn about the Science and the system.

Jacques Monod Conference alert ❗️Abstract deadline: January 31, 2026
Developmental regulation: from molecular to ecological niches
May 18-22, 2026 in Beautiful Roscoff
Pass the word, Apply here: cjm.sb-roscoff.fr/en and see you there. 😎🧪🔬🧬

The Centre for Research in Cellular Biology of Montpellier (CRBM) is recruiting Junior / Senior Group Leaders - FocalPlane The Centre for Research in Cellular Biology of Montpellier (CRBM) is recruiting Junior / Senior Group Leaders to shape its research in the coming decade

'The Centre for Research in Cellular Biology of Montpellier (CRBM) is recruiting Junior/Senior Group Leaders to shape its research in the coming decade.
The deadline for application is 31st of March 2026.'
#sciencejobs
focalplane.biologists.com/cell-biology...

For once, ctenophores are not the abnormal ones! 🪸

A widely used RNA assay labels the wrong molecules in several model organisms After a routine experiment raised suspicions, Steinmetz group researchers joined forces with collaborators to highlight the limitations of a commonly used RNA labeling product.

New paper out in @bmc.springernature.com 🤩👏 A routine 5-ethynyl uridine (EU) RNA labeling experiment in a sea anemone turned into detective work for @malinkjosavik.bsky.social, @ktgarschall.bsky.social & @prhsteinmetz.bsky.social 🕵️‍♀️

Our new paper reveals critical new regulators of stem cell differentiation that control where the right kinds of cells are made in planarians.

In particular, we find Anosmin—a gene responsible for Kallmann Syndrome—as a restrictor of neurogenesis.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#basicresearch

What were the first animals? The fierce sponge–jelly battle that just won’t end For almost two decades, scientists have debated whether sponges or comb jellies are the first animal lineage. Now some are calling for a more harmonious approach.

On the importance of preprints, regardless of whether you are Team Sponge or Team Jelly:

'King says that she wishes she had posted the study as a preprint so that the errors could have been caught sooner.'

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Always great to visit Bergen Aquarium and see comb jellies exhibited in all their beauty 🌈

The comb jellies are now part of a permanent exhibit at the aquarium. #ctenophores #Bergen #aquarium

@alexandrejan.bsky.social, Simen Mannsåker & @msarscentre.bsky.social

Our comb jellies are on display in a new permanent exhibit at Bergen Aquarium 🤩✨ They are in very good company, alongside several jellyfish species. A must-see if you ever visit #SunnyBergen!