News

Alessandro’s paper is out in Nature

Congratulations to Alessandro on his paper  in Nature. You can find the paper here. In this paper, we investigated the mechanisms of regeneration of zebrafish scale osteoblast tissue and found that it is controlled by a set of repeated Erk waves. The waves control the growth of the tissue. This was a nice team effort including current graduate students Maya and Luke, former graduate student Ben and former undergrad Julia, as well as our lab manager Anna.This was another great collaboration with Ken Poss.

Woon’s paper is out in Dev Cell

Congratulations to Woon on his paper  in Dev Cell. You can find the paper here. In this paper, we investigated the mechanisms of growth of the histone locus body and identified a new framework for the precise control of growth and function of phase separated nuclear bodies. This was a fun collaboration with  Bob Duronio and Bill Marzluff (our neighbors at UNC) and Marco Tarzia (Sorbonne, Paris).

Stefano was a co-Director of the Morphogenesis Summer School at KITP 

I enjoyed organizing together with Sebastian Streichan and Boris Shraiman the Morphogenesis Summer School at KITP. Alessandro and I also run a module on the effects of cytoplasmic flows on the formation of morphogen gradients in Drosophila embryos. It was great fun and we got some results! You can see the details here

Stefano and Alessandro gave talks at the Morphogenesis Program at KITP 

It was great to be back at KITP for another Morphogenesis Program. Both Stefano and Alessandro gave a talk about the recent work on cytoplasmic flows in embryogenesis and signaling waves in regeneration. You can see the details here

Stefano gave a talk at European Cell Cycle Meeting

Stefano was an invited speaker at the European Cell Cycle Meeting. It was great fun to be back in Trieste and to learn about a lot of great science.

Stefano gave a talk at Princeton

It was great to be back at Princeton for a talk at the Lewis Sigler Institute. I presented Victoria’s and Alberto’s work on nuclear positioning and Alessandro’s work on scale regeneration. I enjoyed seeing many friends and close colleagues. Eric (Wieschaus) showing my daughter and son the nice fossil collection of the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology was definitively a very special treat! Special thanks to Amanda Amodeo and Stas Shvartsman for hosting.

Stefano gave a talk at the Advances in Mineral Metabolism Meeting

Fun meeting in beautiful Snowmass, Colorado. I presented Alessandro’s work on scale regeneration and I learned a lot about all aspects of bone biology. Special thanks to Kurt Hankenson for the invitation.

New Paper out in Cell

Congratulations to co-first authors Victoria and Alberto on their paper just published in Cell. You can see the paper here. In this paper, we investigated the mechanisms of nuclear positioning and how they affect cell cycle synchrony. This project was a nice collaborative effort and special thanks go to all authors: Victoria, Alberto, Daniel, Avaneesh, Alessandro, Luca, Massimo and Stefano (De Renzis).

Patrick and Stefano publish a Dispatch in Current Biology

Patrick and I wrote a Dispatch on two papers that have just appeared in Current Biology. The papers from Stas Shvartsman’s lab at Princeton and Jorg Grosshans’ lab in Göttingen demonstrate the importance of tight control of nucleotide levels in early Drosophila embryos

Alessandro gave a talk at the Titisee Meeting

Alessandro gave a talk on his work on scale regeneration at the 119th Internation Titisee Conference: Tissue formation and regeneration: from molecules to models. He was among a quite distinguished group of speakers, see here

Stefano gave a talk at Stanford

I just came back from a great visits to Stanford. I learned a lot of exciting science and received great feedback on Victoria’s and Alessandro’s work. Special thanks to Jan Skotheim for the invitation and wonderful hospitality.

Victoria defended her thesis!

And finally the day came for the first PhD defense from the lab. Victoria did a fantastic job and is now getting ready to wrap things up in the lab.

Stefano gave a talk at the APS March Meeting

I presented our work on mitotic waves and nuclear positioning at the American Physical Society March Meeting. I also chaired a session. Thanks to David Lubensky for the invitation and to Allon Klein and Adam Martin in in making my session a lot of fun.

Lab attended the qBio meeting in Hawaii

Luke, Maya, Patrick, Victoria and Woon attended the qBio meeting in Hawaii. Victoria gave a plenary talk, Patrick and Woon breakout session talks and Luke and Maya presented posters.

Victoria gives a talk at the ASCB meeting

Victoria presented her work on cell cycle synchronization and nuclear positioning at the ACSB meeting in San Diego

Ben’s paper is out in Current Biology

Congratulations to Ben for the publication of his paper in Current Biology. This paper describes imaging of osteoblast dynamics in regenerating zebrafish scales. It was another productive and fun collaboration with the Poss’ lab. The link to the paper is here

Victoria receives a Norton B. Gilula Travel Award

Congratulations to Victoria upon receiving the Norton B. Gilula Travel Award from Journal of Cell Biology. This award will support Victoria travel to the ASCB meeting.

Two more meetings coming up

I am looking forward to heading to Arizona for two meetings that sound really fun

Exciting Biologies 2018: Biology of Time

Chemical Machinery of the Cell

Stefano gave talks at NYU Medical Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering

I just came back from great visits to NYU and Memorial Sloan Kettering. I learned a lot of exciting science and received great feedback on Victoria’s and Alessandro’s work. Special thanks to Ruth Lehmann and Zhirong Bao for hosting me. Seeing former friends and advisors from my time at Rockefeller was a special treat as well.

 

Woon receives a E. Bayard Halsted Scholarship

Congratulations to Woon for being selected as a recipient of a E. Bayard Halsted Scholarship from Duke Graduate School.

Woon and Stefano presented at the Cell Cycle Meeting at the Salk

Woon and Stefano attended the Cell Cycle Meeting at the Salk. Stefano was an invited speaker and presented the work of Victoria and Alessandro, while Woon presented a poster. The meeting was a lot of fun with excellent talks and posters, inspiring discussions and a great chance to catch with old friends and connect with people in the field.

Stefano gave talks at University of Chicago and Northwestern University

I just came back from a very fun visit to Chicago and Evanston. I learned a lot of exciting science and received great feedback on Victoria’s and Alessandro’s work. Special thanks to Ed Munro and Madhav Mani for hosting me.

Woon wins Best Talk Award at the Triangle Fly meeting

Congratulations to Woon upon receiving the Award for Best Talk at the local Drosophila meeting.

Woon wins a Travel Award from Regeneration Next

Congratulations to Woon upon receiving a Travel Award from Regeneration Next. Woon will participate to the Cell Cycle Meeting at the Salk Institute. A link to the announcement of the Awards can be found here.

Stefano selected as Scialog Fellow

Stefano was selected as a Scialog Fellow to participate in the 2018 Scialog: Chemical Machinery of the Cell. Information about this joint program from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation can be found here

Journal of Developmental Biology publishes an interview with Victoria

Victoria was interviewed by the Journal of Developmental Biology as the recipient of their 2018 Travel Award. You can read the interview here

Alessandro receives a 2018 Duke Postdoctoral Development Award

Congratulations to Alessandro upon receiving one of the 2018 Duke Postdoctoral Development Awards. This will support his participation to the Physiology course at MBL this summer. The link to the award is here

Stefano gives a talk at the Northwestern Developmental Biology Conference

Stefano was an invited speaker at this regional Developmental Biology Conference. The meeting- in beautiful Friday Harbor- was absolutely fantastic with a lot of good talks and posters. Meeting Victoria Foe in her lab was an absolute treat. Thanks to David Kimelman and Kara Cerveny for the invitation.

Victoria and Patrick present at the Self-Organization meeting in Heidelberg

Victoria and Patrick attended the Tissue Self-Organization meeting at EMBL in Heidelberg. Victoria gave a talk and Patrick presented a poster. Victoria is staying at EMBL to work in Stefano De Renzis’ lab and gave another seminar about her work there.

Sweep waves paper out in PNAS 

Our new paper on the mechanism of mitotic waves in early Drosophila embryos is out in PNAS. In this paper, we provide both theoretical and experimental evidence for a new mechanism for wave-like spreading of chemical activity in time-dependent bistable systems. The waves are different from metastable waves usually described in the literature. They represent a novel theoretical mechanism that we dubbed sweep waves. The paper was another fun and productive collaboration with Massimo Vergassola in the Physics Department at UCSD.

You can read the paper here

Victoria and Stefano publish a Review in Journal of Cell Biology

Our Review on chemical waves just came out in Journal of Cell Biology. We argue that traveling waves represent a general strategy to coordinate signaling dynamics in space and time and are looking forward to seeing more examples of chemical waves being discovered in complex tissues.

You can read the Review here

Victoria wins a travel award from the Journal of Developmental Biology

Congratulations to Victoria for winning a travel award from the Journal of Developmental Biology. The announcement can be found here

Alessandro receives a renewal of his  fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation

Congratulations to Alessandro upon receiving a well-deserved renewal of the prestigious SNSF Postdoctoral Fellowship! The Fellowship will support his work in lab until the end of 2019.

Stefano and Victoria present at ASCB

Stefano gave a talk on the work of Victoria, in collaboration with Alberto and Massimo, at one of the ASCB pre-meeting.  Special thanks to Dave Matus for the invitation. Victoria presented a poster. Special thanks to Regeneration Next and the Triangle Cytoskeleton Symposium for supporting Victoria’s travel.

Victoria wins a travel award from Regeneration Next

Congratulations to Victoria for winning a second Travel Award to participate in the ASCB annual meeting from the Regeneration Next. An announcement can be found here: https://sites.duke.edu/regenerationnext/2017/10/17/students-win-travel-grants/

Stefano gives a talk at UNC

Stefano presented the work of Victoria, in collaboration with Alberto and Massimo, at UNC. It was really a great visit, meeting so many colleagues and friends. I learned a lot new great science and got excellent feedback on our work. Lunch with the students was a special treat. Special thanks to Amy Maddox for the invitation.

Victoria wins the Triangle Cytoskeleton Meeting Travel Award!

Congratulations to Victoria for winning the Travel Award to participate in the ASCB annual meeting from the Triangle Cytoskeleton Meeting. It was a fun meeting with lots of interactions with close friends and colleagues.

Watching the eclipse in style!

We enjoyed watching the solar eclipse today (August 21, 2017)! A fun outing followed by a good gelato.

 

Patrick and Stefano publish a Preview article in Dev Cell

Patrick and I wrote a Preview article on a very nice paper from the lab of Stas Shvartsman at Princeton. Stas and his colleagues discovered some interesting regulation of the synthesis of dNTP during embryonic development. You can find our Preview here

Stefano gives a talk at the SDB meeting

Stefano was an invited speaker at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Developmental Biology. He presented Victoria’s work on the synchronization of the cell cycle during Drosophila embryonic development. The meeting was a lot of fun and a great chance to see so many old friends and mentors.

 

Cell Biology Retreat

We just came back from a fantastic Departmental Retreat. Science was great and so were all the social activities. Ben and Victoria gave very nice talks and Alessandro, Patrick and Woon presented posters. To keep a good lab tradition, Patrick won the prize for best movie (as well as getting an honorable mention for his poster!) and Woon got an honorable mention for his movie. The lab also won the lab olympics confirming that we are truly a multi-talented group of people (photo is from Woon).

 

Woon passes his qualifying exam 

Congratulations to Woon on passing his qualifying exam.

Stefano gives a talk at Penn State

Stefano presented the work of Victoria, Amir and Patrick at Penn State on February 6. There are a lot of people doing interesting biology and it was great to interact with them. Lunch with the students was a special treat. Special thanks to Lucy Bai for the invitation and for hosting.

Victoria and Stefano among others discuss their views on the interaction between physics and biology at the Winter School in Trieste

You can read the piece on the ICTP website here

Winter School in Trieste, Italy

Most lab members participated in the Quantitative Systems Biology Winter School at ICTP, Trieste, Italy. Stefano was one of the Directors and also gave three lectures on the regulation of the cell cycle during development and on chemical waves. Everybody had a great time and the quality of the school was truly amazing, as the location (photos below are courtesy of Victoria).

You can find more information about the school here.

The School also provided fun moments for lab members to hang out together, do some sightseeing and spend time with Stefano’s postdoctoral mentor Eric Wieschaus:

Alessandro receives a Fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation

Congratulations to Alessandro upon receiving a Fellowship from the SNSF! He will start in the lab on January 3 and we are very excited to have him with us soon.

Val’s and Alberto’s paper out in Current Biology

This beautiful study from Val and Alberto on lineage tracing of blastema cells in the regenerating zebrafish fin is now out in Current Biology. The paper presents significant insights on the cellular  dynamics that drive regeneration. You can read the paper here:

link

Stefano gives a talk at NC State

Stefano gave an Allen Distinguished Microscopy Seminar at NC State on November 9, presenting the work of Victoria, Amir and Patrick. It was fun to meet so many good people. Special thanks to Greg Reeves for the invitation.

 

Forum  in Cell Stem Cell

Ken and I published a Forum in Cell Stem Cell where we discuss the importance of quantitative in toto imaging of regeneration. It was a fun piece to write and an interesting challenge to fit all our ideas in the short format. You can read the paper here:

link

Victoria receives an HHMI International Student Research Fellowship

Victoria is among a small group of international students who will receive a very prestigious fellowship from HHMI this year. This completes a very successful month for her. The press release can be found here:

link

She is also featured on the Duke Research Blog:

link

She will also receive another year of support for her outreach activities in El Salvador from the Faculty for the Future Fellowship (Schlumberger Foundation). Victoria will continue to organize events to encourage Salvadorian young women to consider careers in Science.

Victoria’s paper published in Developmental Cell

This paper describes how waves of Cdk1 activity synchronize the cell cycle of early Drosophila embryos. It was a fun collaboration with Anna Melbinger and Massimo Vergassola at UCSD.

The paper can be found here:

Wave paper

Stefano gives a talk at the KITP, UCSB

Stefano talked about Victoria’s and Amir’s work at the From Genes to Growth and Form program at the KITP. You can watch the talk here.

Amir’s paper accepted at Cell Reports

The paper describing Amir’s PhD work in the Wieschaus’ lab was accepted at Cell Reports. This is an interesting genetic study identifying several rate-limiting regulators of 2 mitotic domains and providing support for the idea that the timing of cell division during Drosophila gastrulation is encoded by the same transcription factors regulating the spatial pattern.

Stefano gives a talk in the  Department of Physics at Georgetown University

Stefano presented the work of Victoria and Woon at Georgetown on July 25. There are a lot of people doing interesting soft matter physics and it was great to interact with them. Special thanks to Emanuela Del Gado for the invitation and for hosting.

Stefano was featured as an alumnus of The Rockefeller University graduate program

You can read about this short piece here:

http://annualreport.rockefeller.edu/graduate-program/

It was fun to be reminded of the great time I had at Rockefeller!