Reposted by Aarushi
What happens when 8,000+ neuroscientists from 92 countries come together?🧠
Ellie Jackson & @aarushivaidya.bsky.social reflect on #FENS2026 in Barcelona, exploring the science, sex-inclusive research, EDI initiatives, ECR opportunities and research culture that stood out to them.
![NDiff227 gastruloids display a developmental delay in comparison to HM-N2B27 gastruloids. (A) Quantitative analysis of the roundness (perimeter2/4π×area) of gastruloids cultured in either HM-N2B27 or NDiff227 showed that HM-N2B27 gastruloids are significantly less ‘Round’ than their NDiff227 counterparts at 96 h [unpaired two-tailed t-test; t(4)=−4.9541, P=0.008]. Each datapoint is the average roundness of an independent replicate experiment containing between ∼40 and 90 individual gastruloids (see Fig. S4B). (B) The frequency of morphologies from the data in A, with examples of gastruloids that would fall in each category (bottom; the left 'Protrusions' image is also shown in Fig. S4). (C) Light-sheet representative images (maximum projection images) highlighting the expression patterns of Cdh1 (magenta) and Cdh2 (cyan) between HM-N2B27 gastruloids at 96 h and NDiff227 gastruloids at 90 h and 96 h. Gastruloids developed in HM-N2B27 have upregulated Cdh2 by 90 h, unlike NDiff227 gastruloids, which show enhanced Cdh2 only at 96 h. Scale bars: 100 μm. (Ci) Qualitative analysis of the average expression pattern of Cdh2 (N-cadherin). The expression patterns were grouped into two categories (phenotypes I and II) and represent the average of three independent replicate experiments, each containing at least seven individual gastruloids per condition. Examples of the two categories are shown below. The leftmost example for ‘Phenotype I’ is shown in the middle row of 90 h HM-N2B27 (Cdh2) in C. For the box and whisker plot, the central line in the box is the median, the lower edge of the box is the first quartile, the upper edge of the box is the third quartile, and the box height is the IQR. The lower and upper whiskers indicate the smallest datapoint within 1.5xIQR below Q1 or above Q3, respectively.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:btitwyhiegkb6f62oguxt6m6/bafkreiakq7wvgnsnajj2g3bpn5k5p4yu7vznwibobhgzu2o5ttsmjq5ylq)
