iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Laurent Formery @laurentformery.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Fantastic news!!! My project ECHINODEV has been awarded an ERC starting grant 🥳🥳⭐ We will use several echinoderm species to study animal body plan evolution! Reach out if you are interested, we will be looking for PhD students and postdocs 😀

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Laurent Formery @laurentformery.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

New alien friend in the echinox lab: the basket star Astrospartus mediterraneus. A truly bizarre fractal body plan, but sooo beautiful 🤩🥹

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Laurent Formery @laurentformery.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

It was awesome to finally visit the @msarscentre.bsky.social! Thanks @emclaereboudt.bsky.social for organizing, and everybody for the great discussions! + I got to experience #SunnyBergen (it’s real) 🤩🌞

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Laurent Formery @laurentformery.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Great opportunity to work with cool animals + Nat is awesome 🤗

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Laurent Formery @laurentformery.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

@lowelab.bsky.social lab retreat in #Tahoe for my last week in the US. It's very sad to say goodbye to such a great group of people, and to an amazing mentor 🥹🥹 But there are new exciting adventures ahead!!

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Laurent Formery @laurentformery.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

Back from a fantastic field trip at #HeronIsland Research Station. Such a great place for echinoderm enthusiasts (I counted 15 different species of sea cucumbers on the reef 🤩) Acanthaster picture taken by @Caleb Trimble

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Laurent Formery @laurentformery.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

Sea cucumbers are beautiful! 🥒 This image shows the skeleton of a baby sea cucumber. Very happy that it got awarded by #NikonSmallWorld 😊 👇 Check the preprint by @PranavVyas and @prakashlab.bsky.social if you want to learn more about skeleton development in these animals: shorturl.at/J3g1h

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Reposted by Laurent Formery

Society for Developmental Biology @socdevbio.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

✴️Sea urchins have illuminated fertilization 🧫, early cleavage divisions 🔬, and gene regulation in embryonic patterning 🧬. A classic marine model that shaped our understanding of cell fate and axis formation. 📸 Image by Laurent Formery #ModelMonday #DevBio

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Laurent Formery @laurentformery.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

Sea urchin metamorphosis is maybe one of the most radical event in developmental biology. In just about an hour, these little pluteus larvae completely reorganize their entire body plan. Very happy that this video got awarded an honorable mention by #NikonSmallWorld 😃

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Laurent Formery @laurentformery.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

I am very happy to announce that the Echinox Lab will open in the BIOM unit at @obs-banyuls.fr in January 2026!! 🥳 We will use several echinoderm species to study animal body plan evolution. 🔽 Check our brand new lab website if you want to learn more about our future research www.echinox.org

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Laurent Formery @laurentformery.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

I am honored and beyond happy to share that I have been awarded an @inserm.fr #ATIP-Avenir fellowship to start my own lab to study body plan evolution in #echinoderms 🤩 Stay tuned for more exciting updates coming soon!!

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Laurent Formery @laurentformery.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

My first steps into paleontology!! 😀 Big thanks to @imranrahman.bsky.social for having me on this cool project to look at some fascinating echinoderm fossils ⭐

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Laurent Formery @laurentformery.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Birdwatching from my desk at Hopkins Marine Station (instead of working on my paper's revisions 🥹 🥲) #DoomscrollingBreak

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Laurent Formery @laurentformery.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

If you like snowflakes, check our new preprint about axial patterning in brittle stars ⭐ We looked at the expression of anteroposterior patterning genes in Amphipholis squamata juveniles, and compared it with existing data from other classes www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @lowelab.bsky.social

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Laurent Formery @laurentformery.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

Time to recycle this xmas brittle star HCR ⭐ Happy holidays all!! ❄️🎁🎄 Stay tuned for some more brittle star data coming soon 😎 #fluorescence #microscopy #HCR #holidays #imaging

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Laurent Formery @laurentformery.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Calcein staining showing the skeleton on the aboral side of a juvenile sea star (Patiria miniata) Everything looks better with a rainbow LUT 🌈😊 #microscopy #echinoderms #fluorescence

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Laurent Formery @laurentformery.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Shamelessly taking advantage of the bluesky migration to share again some of my favorite echinoderm pics 😀🤩 🔽 Acetylated tubulin (nerves and cilia) and phalloidin (muscles) stains in a juvenile sea urchin (Paracentrotus lividus) just after metamorphosis ⭐

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Laurent Formery @laurentformery.bsky.social · 17/10/2024

So happy to see this picture of the nervous system in a transparent Henricia sea star selected as an image of distinction by @NikonSmallWorld !! 😎 It was imaged using the see-star clearing protocol developped with @Nat Clarke ⬇️Check the paper here: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

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Laurent Formery @laurentformery.bsky.social · 01/11/2023

Our study investigating the hidden molecular anatomy of sea stars is now published!! 🥳🥳🥳 We looked at a long standing zoological problem: how to compare the pentaradial symmetry of echinoderms with the bilateral symmetry of their relatives? Check what we found here 🔽 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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