iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Toby Andrews

Institute of Developmental & Regenerative Medicine @idrm.ox.ac.uk · 17/07/2026

The Oxford-ZEISS Centre of Excellence in Biomedical Imaging between @kiroxford.bsky.social and the Institute of Developmental & Regenerative Medicine has become the first to acquire the new ZEISS Lightfield 4D system. Read more: www.idrm.ox.ac.uk/news-and-fea...

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Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Don't miss this online session on Monday! I'll be talking about our lab's new directions on oxygen sensing in heart plasticity and diversity 🫀🌬️ and @zoenahas.bsky.social will tell us all about shoot branch architectures in plants 🌱 Looking forward to it!

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Reposted by Toby Andrews

Cambridge Morphogenesis Seminar Series @cammorphoseries.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Next Monday, 15 June at 2:30 PM (UK time), we are excited to welcome Zoe Nahas @zoenahas.bsky.social and Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social! This seminar will be online and will be the last one of the term. We hope to see many of you there and finish the term with great science and discussion!

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Lionel Christiaen, PhD (he/him/his) @lionlchristiaen.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social now discussing adaptive morphogenesis at the heart-blood interface. #CJM26

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Margarida Cardoso Moreira @margaridamcm.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

Our internal organs are evolutionary marvels. New technologies are transforming our understanding of the evolution of vertebrate organs. You can find more by reading here: rdcu.be/e5EgU #EvoBio #EvoDevo 🐟🦎🐢🦇🐊🦜

rdcu.be

The molecular evolution of vertebrate organs

Nature Ecology & Evolution - This Review discusses recent advances in the molecular evolution of vertebrate organs, including rates of evolution of organs and cell types, molecular mechanisms...

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Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Job alert! 📣 I’m looking for a research assistant to join my new team @idrm.ox.ac.uk Were using #zebrafish to understand gene-environment interactions that shape the heart 🫀generate natural diversity 🐸🐭 and contribute to congenital defects ❤️‍🩹 Full info below, and please share! 🫶🏻 bit.ly/467TO0M

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Benoit Bruneau @benoitbruneau.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

Helping this mood is our latest now out in its final form! @irfankathiriya.bsky.social leading the teams with me. Thanks to the editors and reviewers (incl. @wythelab.bsky.social)for a pleasant and productive journey. More to come when the full issue is out. www.nature.com/articles/s44...

nature.com

A disrupted compartment boundary underlies abnormal cardiac patterning and congenital heart defects - Nature Cardiovascular Research

Kathiriya et al. identify a cardiac progenitor lineage with expression of Tbx5 and anterior heart field-specific expression of Mef2c that bisects the intraventricular septum during development and sho...

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Reposted by Toby Andrews

Claudio Cortes @clcortex.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

Today in Oxford - the Jenkinson DevBio symposium, showcasing exciting #DevBio science from all around the UK! What a lineup 🎉 @vmetzis.bsky.social @tobyandrews.bsky.social @simoesfilipa.bsky.social @jvermot.bsky.social @idrm.ox.ac.uk

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Reposted by Toby Andrews

Biomedical Picture of the Day BPoD @bpodaily.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

How the functional architecture of the zebrafish heart is shaped during development 📹 @tobyandrews.bsky.social et al @rashmi-priya.bsky.social lab @crick.ac.uk in @cellpress.bsky.social Developmental Cell ➡️ bpod.org.uk/archive/2025...

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Julia Eckert @juliaeckert.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

Now published in @natcomms.nature.com! 🥳 👉 rdcu.be/eATn3 We developed image analysis tools to capture the nematic orientation field of 3D tissue surfaces. Tested on epithelial aggregates, zebrafish hearts, myoblasts on spheres & micro-vessels, we combined soft matter physics with exp. biology.

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Rita Mateus @ritamateus.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

Hot off the press!!! Proudly presenting our lab's new review on how do cells communicate to control organ size :) We focus specially on dynamic connections that operate at different timescales to regulate organ growth and morphogenesis. #devbio #SizeandShape www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.com

Start-Shape-Stop: Cell communication mechanisms controlling organ size

Accurate growth control is critical for the achievement of proportional organs during animal development and repair processes. Either extra or deficie…

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Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Heartiest congratulations and thanks to @rashmi-priya.bsky.social on the first of many studies from the lab, and for supporting me through its morphogenesis from start to finish 🫀

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Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

A huge thanks to all authors for their work in bringing this project to life @jcornwallscoones.bsky.social @mcramel.bsky.social @kirtigupta.bsky.social @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social and our colleagues and facilities @crick.ac.uk 13/n

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Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Looking forward - a deeper understanding of these design principles will give us better insight into what makes development robust, and how it can be steered to produce diversity, novelty, and disease 12/n

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Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Together, we learn that the shape and size of the heart aren’t hardwired, instead they’re worked out through a flow of information across scales, giving rise to self-organising and emergent features 👀 11/n

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Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Not only this, they were also more functionally efficient, owing to a greater blood filling capacity. 10/n

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Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

To test the model, we came up with a neat genetic approach to disrupt actin turnover in the Notch+ population. Following the model predictions, when activated at sufficient density, this made hearts bigger... 9/n

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Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

To understand how coherent changes in organ shape and size could arise from stochastic signalling @jcornwallscoones.bsky.social developed a 3D vertex model, which predicted the ventricle should grow suddenly, when enough cells soften 8/n

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Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Looking more closely, we found intrinsic changes in actomyosin tension enable stretched cells to change shape in response to organ scale forces. This is a local response to Notch, activated in a stochastic pattern 7/n

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Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Using drugs to disrupt the heartbeat, we found cells stretch in response to the force of ventricle contraction. This also traps them in the compact layer, meaning trabecular density stabilises at a threshold of force production 6/n

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Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

meanwhile, by unwrapping the heart, we found that compact layer cells stretch. This allows the heart to grow in size despite losing cells from its outer layer 5/n

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Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Using single cell tracking, we found trabecular cells don’t just divide to form ridges. Instead, they recruit cells from the surrounding compact layer... 4/n

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Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

As the embryo grows, the heart expands in size and forms two layers – an elastic compact layer, and an inner layer of muscular trabecular ridges that help to power heart contraction 3/n

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Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

The heart is a remarkable organ, where form and function arise in parallel – in this case, the heart wall remodels to form a complex architecture, while the heart beats to support blood flow to the peripheral organs 2/n

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Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Thrilled to bits to see our latest work online in Dev Cell! 🥳 We wanted to know how cells build functional organs with precision🫀🫁📏 Here we show how coupling of cell shape and organ function fine tunes the form and contractile power of the developing #zebrafish heart 1/n tinyurl.com/cell-stretch

tinyurl.com

Mechanochemical coupling of cell shape and organ function optimizes heart size and contractile efficiency in zebrafish

Andrews et al. demonstrate that multiscale feedback between mechanical and chemical cues builds a functional heart to support zebrafish embryonic life. Cell recruitment and organ-scale forces drive tr...

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Reposted by Toby Andrews

Gareth Fraser @garethjfraser.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

New Pre-Print Alert! "Teeth Outside the Jaw: Evolution and Development of the Toothed Head Clasper in Chimaeras." We use fossil evidence, development and CT scans through ghost shark ontogeny to describe the emergence of the tenaculum! 👻🦈🦷 @karlycohen.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

CT scan of the head clasper (tenaculum) from the Spotted Ratfish (Hydrolagus colliei), compete with its rows of shark-like teeth!

Our paper features fossil reconstruction art (of Helodus simplex) by Ray Troll - https://www.trollart.com/

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Reposted by Toby Andrews

James Hammond @jamesehammond.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Latest work: Review on the evolvability of vertebral number, and the developmental processes underpinning it Written by Callum Bucklow, @bertaverd.bsky.social, and myself Check it out here: doi.org/10.32942/X2K...

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Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

A fantastic opportunity to take on evolution with experimental embryology Great lab, mentor, department, and model system 🐠 don't miss out!

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Reposted by Toby Andrews

Prakash Lab @ Miami @vprakashlab.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

🚨📢 New paper alert! Our work showing that bilateral cellular flows display asymmetry prior to left–right organizer formation in amniote gastrulation is now published in PNAS!! @pnas.org 🥳😃 🐣 Paper link: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... News article: news.miami.edu/stories/2025...

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Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

An ancient patterning system co-opted to position the chordate forebrain 🧠 Amphioxus spilling more evolutionary secrets - beautiful and rigorous work from @giacomogattoni.bsky.social (but no surprises there!)

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Young Embryologist Network @yen-network.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

Registration and abstract submission for YEN 2025 is officially open! We are looking forward to seeing you at the 17th Young Embryologist Network Conference on the 19th May 2025. Attendence is FREE thanks to our amazing sponsors: @biologists.bsky.social @10xgenomics.bsky.social and Azenta.

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PLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · 30/01/2025

Tools to analyse early heart morphogenesis in detail are limited. @noelresearchlab.bsky.social &co develop computational package called morphoHeart that allows for integrated 3D analysis of both #heart & extracellular matrix morphology in live #zebrafish embryos 🧪 @plosbiology.org plos.io/42DlqtJ

Maximum intensity projection of a live embryonic zebrafish heart at 72 hours post fertilisation, showing myocardial actin (green; Tg(myl7:LifeActGFP)) and endothelial actin (magenta; Tg(fli1a:Ac-TagRFP)). The image is overlaid in the atrium with 3D reconstructions of the myocardial (light blue), endocardial (pink) and extracellular matrix (orange), and in the ventricle with a 3D reconstruction of the myocardium colour-coded to visualise myocardial thickness.

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Julia Eckert @juliaeckert.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Spheroids are simple systems with only convex curvature. What about more complex systems? We teamed up with @tobyandrews.bsky.social & @rashmi-priya.bsky.social, and analyzed the ventricular myocardium of Zebrafish hearts ... and it works! 👇 (Directors: high alignment = red, misaligned = blue)

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Toby Andrews @tobyandrews.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

How can we accurately measure features on curved 3D tissues? 📐 Normally we rely on lossy 2D projections, but @juliaeckert.bsky.social's new method detects nematic orientation fields on surfaces of arbitrary geometry We tested it in hearts, and works a charm! 🫀 More in Julia's thread below 👇🏻

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Reposted by Toby Andrews

epithelial mechanics fan club @epimechfc.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

Andrews, T. G. R., & Priya, R. (2024). The Mechanics of Building Functional Organs. Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology, a041520. Advance online publication. #EpithelialMechanicsReview cshperspectives.cshlp.org/content/e…

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Giacomo Gattoni @giacomogattoni.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

For my first post on 🦋, I am incredibly excited to share that my PhD paper has been published in #ScienceAdvances! We compared the development of the anterior neuroectoderm to uncover how the chordate #forebrain evolved 🧠. Have a look at the summary 🧵 below! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

science.org

An ancient apical patterning system sets the position of the forebrain in chordates

A conserved Wnt-regulated molecular signature sets forebrain position and identity in chordates.

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Pawel Burkhardt @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Thrilled to see #choanoflagellates on the cover of Science Advances🤩. Our latest work "Electrical signaling and coordinated behavior in the closest relative of animals" out now. Link: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 👏 @jeffcolgren.bsky.social @msarscentre.bsky.social

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Development @dev-journal.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

A tail of two tissues: post-gastrulation tissue scaling in zebrafish ensures proper body proportions Read this Research Highlight showcasing work from @dillansaunders.bsky.social, Carlos Camacho-Macorra & @bensteventon.bsky.social @geneticscam.bsky.social: journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

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Crump Lab @crumplab.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

The outer ear is a mammalian innovation but where did it come from? In our study in Nature, Mathi Thiruppathy and colleagues find that the outer ear arose from modification of an ancestral gill program first originating in marine invertebrates. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/n

nature.com

Repurposing of a gill gene regulatory program for outer ear evolution - Nature

Nature - Repurposing of a gill gene regulatory program for outer ear evolution

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The Milinkovitch-Tzika lab @lanevol.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

🎉 We're excited to share our new research in @nature.com ! We reveal that crocodile head scales self-organize through compressive folding of the skin - a mechanical twist on their development & evolution! Please read & share 🐊🔬 @genevunige.bsky.social

nature.com

Self-organized patterning of crocodile head scales by compressive folding - Nature

Crocodile head scales self-organize through purely mechanical compressive skin folding rather than a patterning process controlled by gene interactions.

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