Jordi Solana

Even more excited — our paper is featured on the cover of Science Advances!

Huge thanks to @alexandrejan.bsky.social who took this incredible photo of a ctenophore (aka comb jelly) and the editors.

Here’s the cover 👇

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

Last chance to apply for one of the LSI PhD projects intake Sept 2026! Deadline tomorrow, 26.11.2025, noon. www.exeter.ac.uk/research/ins... @exeter.ac.uk @lsiexeter.bsky.social

LSI PhD programme | Living Systems Institute | University of Exeter

We are recruiting PhD students!

Two days left to apply for the LSI studentships - deadline Nov 26
www.exeter.ac.uk/research/ins...

and a few more for the SWBio studentships - deadline Dec 3
www.swbio.ac.uk/programme/pr...

Please repost or forward to prospective students that might be interested!

Pleased to share our latest paper led by @tomlewin.bsky.social, now out in @currentbiology.bsky.social! We present the first chromosome-level genome of a phoronid and show that shared chromosomal fusions unite phoronids and bryozoans as sister groups.
www.cell.com/current-biol...

It's always special when you find your own paper in the table of contents of the journal 😍

"The cis-regulatory logic integrating spatial and temporal patterning in the vertebrate neural tube" -> Now out in its final form

www.cell.com/developmenta...

Ectopic head regeneration after nervous system ablation in a sea anemone Via genetic ablation of neurons, Mazloumi Gavgani et al. show that the nervous system is essential for defining axial polarity during whole-body regeneration in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis.

Our paper on the role of neurons in Nematostella head regeneration is now out at @currentbiology.bsky.social Big thank you to all collaborators, it was a pleasure!

Ectopic head regeneration after nervous system ablation in a sea anemone: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...

Join our upcoming course on cutting-edge evolutionary & genomic methods for Evo-Devo studies!
We'll cover: comparative & single-cell transcriptomics,ATAC-seq, phylogenomics, comparative genomics, gene regulation, and much more
Spots still available: sites.google.com/view/evodevo...

I will be participating in this EvoDevo course in Madrid, organised by @patrialvarezcam.bsky.social and other colleagues.

sites.google.com/view/evodevo...

I will be covering scRNA-seq, other topics are transcriptomics, ATAC-seq, phylogenomics

Registration closes on Nov 20!

Dates: Dec 15-18

Evolutionarily conserved transcriptional regulators control monoaminergic neuron development To what extent conserved developmental programs specify homologous cell types is a central question in biology. Here, we address this by focusing on reconstructing monoaminergic neuron development in ...

New preprint out! Evolutionarily conserved transcriptional regulators control monoaminergic neuron development.
We uncover how ancient regulatory programs orchestrate the neurons that produce serotonin and dopamine across 550 million years of evolution.
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

🚨 We're hiring! 🚨 Our lab at the University of Málaga, Spain🇪🇸 is looking for a bioinformatician researcher for a postdoc position (1+1 years). Check the ad, and if you're interested, get in touch!
📅 Starting date early 2026, with some flexibility.
🙏Please, RT!

Thrilled to share that the lab has been awarded a @wellcometrust.bsky.social Discovery Award to keep exploring the evolution of 6-methyladenine #6mA in Eukaryotes. We'll open postdoc (3️⃣) and tech (1️⃣) positions to start in 2026, please share with candidates or reach out if you’d like to join us.

Happy to share the Biodiversity Cell Atlas white paper, out today in @nature.com. We look at the possibilities, challenges, and potential impacts of molecularly mapping cells across the tree of life.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Yang and Phillips labs have an exciting GW4 MRC BioMed DTP PhD project on beta-cell regeneration & designing new proteins with AI tools to control neural signals. Come join us at LSI-Exeter!
gw4biomed.ac.uk/regenerating...
@proteinmotion.bsky.social @lsiexeter.bsky.social #zebrafish #islet

Flagellar gliding in choanoflagellates Freire-Delgado and Brunet discover a new mode of cell motility in choanoflagellates, the closest relatives of animals. Under mild confinement, choanoflagellate move over surfaces without cell deformat...

New short paper from our lab @currentbiology.bsky.social, in which we discover of a new mode of cell motility for choanoflagellates: flagellar gliding. www.cell.com/current-biol... - A 🧵

So happy to see the cephalic furrow combo out back-to-back! This was a wonderful collaborative endeavor 🥹

🥳 Thrilled to share that our lab has been awarded an ERC StGrant for our project SigReg: Signal to Regeneration!

How can we unlock limb regeneration in adult mammals?

It’s time to apply what we learned from 🐸 ➡️ 🐭

Thank you @erc.europa.eu for supporting ambitious science!!!

🥳 Congratulations to our postdoc, Dr. Anna Czarkwiani @aniaczark.bsky.social, on receiving the ERC Starting Grant @erc.europa.eu!

With €2 million in funding, Anna will explore the biology of gravisensation and uncover insights into related disorders. 🧠

#CMCBnews @tudresden.bsky.social #ERCStG

We are all super happy and proud to see our work on the function and evolution of the #cephalic #furrow published in @nature.com. Let me say a few things about the background and history of this work on the #Evolution_of_Morphogenesis (1/12)

🧠🦈Excited to present our latest work🧠🦈Interested in brain evolution? And shark embryos? Then read on… Our work sheds light on the deep origins of our brain’s most complex regions.

Complex behaviour is not limited to animals! Here we map the entire spectrum of waveforms dynamics on a quadriflagellate single cell with 4x 70um (!) #cilia, to a low dimensional behavioural manifold with surprising structure! #protistsonsky

All revealed in our new preprint doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Conservation of bilaterian genome structure is the exception, not the rule - Genome Biology Species from diverse animal lineages have conserved groups of orthologous genes together on the same chromosome for over half a billion years since the last common ancestor of bilaterians. Although no...

Delighted to share the peer-reviewed version of our study led by @tomlewin.bsky.social now out in Genome Biology @bmc.springernature.com! We analyzed 64 chromosome-level genomes across 15 animal phyla and found that extensive genome rearrangements are the norm in bilaterians.
doi.org/10.1186/s130...

#BiologyLetters A review of animal–chlorophyte photosymbioses explains how symbiosis drives adaptation and shapes animal life in diverse and dynamic environments. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... #ecology #evolution #developmentalbiology

The genomic origin of the unique chaetognath body plan - Nature Genomic, single-cell transcriptomic and epigenetic analyses show that chaetognaths, following extensive gene loss in the gnathiferan lineage, relied on newly evolved genes and lineage-specific tandem ...

After nearly twenty years in the making, our attempt at understanding what makes the chaetognath phylum so unique has finally been published! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
with #LauraPiovani @dariagavr.bsky.social @alexdemendoza.bsky.social @chemamd.bsky.social and others /1

So you think you understand everything about #Chlamydomonas photoresponses? think again! #protists #behaviour #cilia

To explain how Chlamy switches handedness from swimming in CCW circles in low-light to CW in high-light... see our new preprint led by Alan Tsang (HKU) 👇
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Synthetic engineering demonstrates that synergy among enhancers involves an increase in transcriptionally productive enhancer-gene contacts Enhancers are non-coding cis-regulatory elements that control the expression of distally located genes in a tissue- and time-specific manner. Recent studies indicate that enhancers can differ in their...

Excited to share the latest work from the lab led by @eharo84.bsky.social, in which we have used synthetic biology to explore the mechanisms by which different types of long-range enhancers ensure robust and precise developmental gene expression

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Latest paper elifesciences.org/articles/107... closes an important cycle in our efforts to study regeneration: week-long recordings allow us to observe the behaviour of cells during the entire course of regeneration in a crustacean leg – bright objects in movie are fluorescent nuclei of cells. 1/6

How innate immunity starts? Early embryos eliminate bacterial infections by epithelial phagocytosis, a conserved process from zebrafish to human embryos. Check our story:
www.cell.com/cell-host-mi...

I am looking for a new postdoc to join the lab. Interested in pluripotency, germ cells, and in investigating these in a genetically tractable cnidarian? Get in touch! We offer a long-term contract, excellent research environment, and a lovely city #Galway. www.urifranklab.org

A meme-style comic panel with three parts. Left: A stylized enhancer with a mutation, surrounded by colored blocks representing functional motifs, a neural network diagram, chromatin accessibility signal traces, and a sequence motif. Two cartoon mouse embryos below show different LacZ reporter activity patterns. Top right: A hand hovers anxiously between two red buttons labeled “Experiments” and “AI,” with the caption “HOW DO ENHANCERS REALLY WORK?” Bottom right: A sweating superhero wipes his forehead, looking stressed about the difficult choice.

Textbooks: “Enhancers are just a bunch of TFBSs”

But how do they REALLY work?

New paper with many contributors here @berkeleylab.lbl.gov, @anshulkundaje.bsky.social, @anusri.bsky.social

A 🧵 (1/n)

Free access link: rdcu.be/erD22

Physalia megalista, a cnidiran with a gas filled float, raised sail, and long blue tentacles hanging below. Image credit: Dalila Destanović

Excited to share our study on sailing siphonophores, AKA bluebottles or man-o'-war! 🌊 we received hundreds of samples from scientists around the world, part of a huge effort to sequence genomes and test for multiple species 🧬 out today in @currentbiology.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.cu... 🦑🧪📌