Congratulations to Yinan and the team for their paper on embryogenesis in 4D!

Yinan and her team have generated a huge dataset capturing how gene expression changes across time and space in zebrafish embryos. To do this in the thick zebrafish embryo samples they developed a new method: whole-embryo imaging platform using multiplexed error-robust fluorescent in situ hybridization (weMERFISH). Moreover, they could map the expression of thousands of unmeasured genes through computational methods. Allowing the most expansive and comprehensive transcriptional atlas of embryo development yet. This exciting work was published in Science. Read more about the work here and the paper itself here. This is a huge collaborative project with valuable contributions from many scientists. Learn more about the collaborative labs: Bogdan Bintu, Guoqiang Yu, Susan Mango, and Ahilya Sawh.

See also a companion paper on mapping lineages by the lab of Guiqiang Yu with contributions from Joaquin, Yinan and Alex.

Congratulations to Emily who is starting her lab at NYU!

Emily is going back to her beloved New York to start her very own lab researching how internal sensation affects behaviours in two species: Danionella and C. elegans. The Danionella fish species are some of the smallest vertebrates, and are transparent! Allowing for unparalleled visualisation of neurons within a vertebrate adult (much like our lab’s favourite model organism zebrafish larvae). C. elegans also offers this visual tractability (as well as genetic and experimental tractability). We’re so excited for Emily that she will have her own lab to explore the interesting world of internal sensation! Learn more about her new lab here

Congratulations to Madalena who has started her own lab at the MPI-CBG!

While we’re sad to see Madalena leave the Schier lab, we’re so excited for her to start her own group at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics! Madalena and her lab will dissect how translation is controlled during zebrafish embryogenesis. We look forward to hearing about her lab’s exciting new findings and wish her the very best! Learn more about her new position here

Congratulations to Emily as her paper on internal mechanosensation is published!

Congratulations to Emily on her newly published paper The DEG/ENaC channel DEGT-1 is a proprioceptor of C. elegans foregut movement. We not only receive sensation from the outside world such as sight and hearing, but also from our internal worlds such as hunger and balance. One form of internal perception is proprioception where we receive feedback of our body’s position and how it movement. Here she has uncovered the role of a channel for internal sensation of pharynx movement. You can read the paper here.

Congratulations Annika and Max on their cichlid paper coming out in Nature Eco. Evo.!

Congratulations to Max and Annika and all their coauthors on their new paper! Cichlid fishes are exceptionally fast at speciation. Lake Tanganyika is only about 10 million years old and has about 250 endemically evolved cichlid species. Our lab collaborated with Lake Tanganika cichlid species experts the Salzburger lab, and found that cichlids have diverse activity patterns. Some are night active (nocturnal), some day active (diurnal) and others are most active during the dawn and dusk, while others have no clear rhythm. This temporal niche partitioning could have supported the rapid diversification of these species.

Read also the news and views here.

Max now has his own lab at the University of Toronto.

The beautiful fish drawings come from talented artist Julie Johnson.

New review on Nodal signalling in embryonic development!

Nodal signalling molecules are crucial for key steps in embryonic development. The function of these TGFβ family ligands are largely conserved across vertebrates. Yet there remain many unanswered questions on how these molecules and the genes they regulate control embryonic tissue patterning. Read more about it in this extensive review by Alex and two talented PhD students from the lab: Jake and Mireia!

Madalena’s paper now published in Dev Cell

Madalena’s paper “The regulatory landscape of 5′ UTRs in translational control during zebrafish embryogenesis” is now out in Developmental Cell. Congratulations to all authors!

Madalena used a massively parallel reporter assay (MPRA) of 18,154 RNA sequences to uncover the translation initiation potential of endogenous 5’UTRs by polysome profiling. They look at the regulation across zebrafish embryogenesis (2, 4, 6 and 10 hours post fertilisation). From this data they identified different regulatory dynamics and 86 potential regulatory motifs. Some of motifs are known RNA protein binding motifs, but many are new. This is exciting as each motif is a new lead to find regulatory proteins and further our understanding of how RNA to protein translation is controlled.