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Karen J Liu

@karenjliu

Professor of Genetics & Development, King's College London. Neural crest biology - MOUSE🐭 🐸HUMAN🐭 🐸 FROG sneaky 🐣 ⭐️ My opinions will someday be the opinions of my employer.⭐️

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06.09.2023
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Latest posts by Karen J Liu @karenjliu

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Multiscale Models for Life (MM4L) Centre for Doctoral Training Funded Studentship: How ECM changes shape cellular decision making Embryo, neural crest, developmental biology, cell biology, cell migration, biophysics, mechanobiology, bioengineering.

Fully funded PhD post, UK/Home student, starting 01/06/26. Interested in working at the interface of dev bio, biophysics and cell biology? Great collaboration with Amy Beedle and @leonerossetti.bsky.social Informal enquiries welcome. Deadline 15/03 #neuralcrest

www.kcl.ac.uk/study-legacy...

24.02.2026 22:06 πŸ‘ 8 πŸ” 11 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Abstract deadline looming! Coming join us in June for a great meeting on developmental origins of paediatric cancers, including neuroblastoma organised by @tsakiridis.bsky.social and friends @childrenwithcancer.bsky.social #neuralcrest www.crick.ac.uk/whats-on/dev...

15.02.2026 01:57 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
2026 Craniofacial Morphogenesis and Tissue Regeneration Conference GRC The 2026 Gordon Research Conference on Craniofacial Morphogenesis and Tissue Regeneration will be held in Ventura, California. Apply today to reserve your spot.

Last couple spots remaining for the Craniofacial GRC in sunny CA! Looks to be a full house, with a great set of up-and-coming #craniofacial biologists spanning evo/devo, genetics, multiomics all the way to stem cells, engineering and repair. @brugmannlab.bsky.social www.grc.org/craniofacial...

06.02.2026 07:40 πŸ‘ 8 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
2026 Craniofacial Morphogenesis and Tissue Regeneration Conference GRC The 2026 Gordon Research Conference on Craniofacial Morphogenesis and Tissue Regeneration will be held in Ventura, California. Apply today to reserve your spot.

Think about craniofacial biology in sunny California😎! Don't forget to submit an abstract for the 2026 GRC Craniofacial. Many talk slots available from abstract selections. Deadline for talk abstracts 14 Dec, coming soon.... ☠️🐭🐟🐸🧬 #craniofacial #genetics #neuralcrest www.grc.org/craniofacial...

28.11.2025 17:39 πŸ‘ 22 πŸ” 9 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
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SAVE THE DATE! Stoked to organize the 2026 Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting with @rashmi-priya.bsky.social, @lowelab.bsky.social, and Shelbi Russell. Come learn about Biomedicine, Biomechanics, and the Biosphere, August 24-28, 2026. Registration dates, etc., coming soon! Please RT

19.11.2025 20:23 πŸ‘ 119 πŸ” 75 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 3

Exciting new findings on mechanisms of Wnt signalosomes --from Sheng-yuan Wu's PhD project in @matthias-krause.bsky.social lab! Great collaborators, great story. #xenopus 🐸

25.11.2025 13:15 πŸ‘ 12 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Endocytosis of Wnt-receptors is required for signalling, yet uptake mechanisms remain poorly understood. We resolve a longstanding controversy by showing that Wnt3a triggers rapid Clathrin-Mediated and Fast Endophilin-Mediated LRP6 endocytosis at low concentrations sufficient for Wnt activation.

25.11.2025 10:58 πŸ‘ 11 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Just heading home from our @mrcmousenetwork.bsky.social MRC NMGN Science Meeting 2025 in York where our Congenital Anomalies Cluster shared updates on our clinical VUS & phenotyping pipelines at the podium! Great discussions! #FunctionalGenomics #RareDisease #CongenitalAnomalies

14.11.2025 18:39 πŸ‘ 12 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Photos of carved pumpkins with different designs

Photos of carved pumpkins with different designs

It's Halloween in CCRB! Today we held our traditional Pumpkin Carving Competition, and it was a very competitive one!
Congratulations to @karenjliu.bsky.social 's lab for the win!
Can you guess which was the winner?

30.10.2025 17:47 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Neuroblastoma-associated ALK variants have distinct cellular and biochemical activities https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.25.677354v1

26.09.2025 05:46 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Embryology! Neural crest! Looking for a postdoc? Job closes 25 Aug. Informal enquiries welcome, and anyone hanging out at the Xenopus meeting come say hi. #mouse #human #development #neuralcrest #chromatin
@the-node.bsky.social @marcotrizzino.bsky.social

18.08.2025 07:20 πŸ‘ 9 πŸ” 10 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
The amazing Matt Guille opens the meeting

The amazing Matt Guille opens the meeting

Wow, International Xenopus Meeting (IXC25) -- Matt Guille and EXRC opens the meeting with old friends new science @xenbase.bsky.social xenopusresource.org/20th-interna...
#science #devbio #xenopus #frogs

18.08.2025 07:11 πŸ‘ 13 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Postdoctoral Research Associate: Modelling Neural Crest Anomalies (mouse/human) - the Node The Liu lab is looking for a postdoc with a love of embryos and developmental biology! This post is part of an MRC-funded collaboration between Karen Liu’s lab at King’s College London and Marco Trizz...

Dev biologists! 3-yr postdoc position at King's, collaboration with Trizzino lab @marcotrizzino.bsky.social modelling CHD3 neural crest. We are looking for postdocs with mad embryology skills @the-node.bsky.social #developmental @ccrb27.bsky.social

thenode.biologists.com/jobs/postdoc...

05.08.2025 10:15 πŸ‘ 39 πŸ” 43 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 2
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a pac man game with ghosts and a heart ALT: a pac man game with ghosts and a heart
15.07.2025 19:45 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

what

15.07.2025 19:42 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

25.04.2025 15:32 πŸ‘ 60144 πŸ” 20581 πŸ’¬ 592 πŸ“Œ 831

Nice stripe action! πŸ¦“

30.03.2025 17:49 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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β€˜No Way’ to Please Everyone: Columbia’s President Confronts Trump’s Ultimatum With Trump intent on making an example of Columbia, Armstrong is at the center of a fight over the future of higher education.

β€˜No Way to Please Everyone’ Says Only University Where Students Are Regularly Kidnapped

21.03.2025 12:00 πŸ‘ 14891 πŸ” 3438 πŸ’¬ 209 πŸ“Œ 108

Congrats to our very own Pleasantine Mill! Well deserved. 🐭 @mrcmousenetwork.bsky.social go NMGN Congenital Anomalies Cluster

25.03.2025 10:08 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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We are delighted to announce that the winner of the 2025 Wolpert medal is Pleasantine Mill!
bsdb.org/2025/03/05/2...

06.03.2025 16:06 πŸ‘ 41 πŸ” 7 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 8
Photo of conference venue ACC Liverpool

Photo of conference venue ACC Liverpool

We are looking forward to meeting everyone in Liverpool next week for our special 100-year anniversary conference. We have a busy, fun-filled programme. You can follow all the action from Biologists @ 100 at #biologists100. 100yearsconference.biologists.com

21.03.2025 09:50 πŸ‘ 50 πŸ” 16 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 3

Very excited to be working with @marcotrizzino.bsky.social on unravelling CHD3 function in craniofacial neural crest! Parallel human and mouse experiments & disease modelling πŸ­πŸ”¬ with @profsimonfisher.bsky.social

21.03.2025 08:06 πŸ‘ 12 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Thank you to @ukri.org MRC for awarding our grant on the role of CHD3 in neural crest/craniofacial development (and associated syndromes), together with the brilliant @karenjliu.bsky.social! And in collaboration with @profsimonfisher.bsky.social
Exciting times!

20.03.2025 15:36 πŸ‘ 17 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
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Is flat 15% fair? An NIH funding policy is misguided and damaging

'NIH suggests that indirect and direct costs are substitutes when in reality they are complements: (...) If NIH puts more money into direct project funding, that funding generates additional indirect costs for more labs, more safety & compliance officers, and more buildings & their utility costs.'

15.03.2025 09:37 πŸ‘ 15 πŸ” 8 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Science under siege: protecting scientific progress in turbulent times As Editors-in-Chief of The Company of Biologists' journals, we have been watching with growing concern the policy changes in the United States of America (USA) and the challenges that these are creati...

Science under siege: protecting scientific progress in turbulent times

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

13.03.2025 13:06 πŸ‘ 79 πŸ” 44 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 2
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To celebrate International Women's Day we recorded a special podcast series, interviewing 6 different women with different roles in our department. Check it out on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/7GoTzSh...

12.03.2025 07:44 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Understanding the genetic roots of aggressive childhood cancer: Research aims to improve Neuroblastoma treatment Scientists have secured Β£1.5 million from Cancer Research UK (CRUK) to investigate the genetic secrets behind neuroblastoma - aiming to improve treatments for this aggressive childhood cancer.

I am grateful to @cancerresearchuk.org for choosing to support our work aiming to understand the links between distorted embryonic development and neuroblastoma initiation using our human pluripotent stem cell differentiation model: www.sheffield.ac.uk/biosciences/...

06.03.2025 10:39 πŸ‘ 32 πŸ” 10 πŸ’¬ 6 πŸ“Œ 3
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Scientists aiming to bring back woolly mammoth create woolly mice Genetically modified mice have traits geared towards cold tolerance, in step towards modifying elephants

GIVE THEM TRUNKS YOU COWARDS

www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

04.03.2025 18:05 πŸ‘ 65 πŸ” 18 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 3
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It's #RareDiseaseDay! Rare diseases are individually rare but collectively common, affecting 3.5 million people in the UK. Bring out your stripey socks to raise awareness #RareDisease #ShowYourStripes @medicsforrare.bsky.social
Find out more about RareDisease at www.m4rd.org www.rarediseaseday.org

28.02.2025 08:45 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

We have an opening for a Reviews Editor on Development. If you love developmental biology and its academic community, and have an interest in publishing and science communication, this could be the role for you. Full details here: www.biologists.com/wp-content/u...

27.02.2025 13:23 πŸ‘ 39 πŸ” 30 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 3