iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Speakers include @cantinilab.bsky.social @pascual-reguant.bsky.social @hildenelissen.bsky.social @hilsawh.bsky.social @thomas-walter.bsky.social Hands-on workshops on different aspects of sequencing-based and imaging-based spatial OMICs data analysis.

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- Call for Posters: we encourage applicants to submit a poster abstract alongside their motivation letter during the application process.

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Key Information: - Only 50 places are available. - Application until May 31st, 2026. - Accommodation and meals are included in the registration fee. - Registration is free for all CNRS employees (including PhD students and Post-Doc).

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Designed to bridge the gap between wet-lab innovation and advanced bioinformatics analysis, this Summer School offers a deep dive into the rapidly expanding field of Spatial OMICs with a mix of lectures from experts in the field and hands-on training sessions.

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spatial-cell-id.github.io

📢Join us for the Spatial-Cell-ID #spatialOMICs Summer School, September 13-18th 2026, at the Centre Paul-Langevin in Aussois, in the French Alps! You can find the full scientific program, our speakers, and the application form on our website: spatial-cell-id.github.io/scid2026/ Please share!

SCID 2026

Using Spatial OMICs to uncover cell identity during developmental processes 13-18 September 2026 Aussois, France

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Yad Ghavi-Helm @yghavi.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Don't miss this great opportunity!

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Reposted by Yad Ghavi-Helm

IGFL @igflyon.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

L’IGFL recrute un•e Professeur•e des Universités en biologie moléculaire (CNU 64), UCBL Lyon 1. Enseignement L2-M2 (Biochimie et Biologie Moléculaire) + projet en biologie moléculaire des eucaryotes au sein de l’IGFL. Détails: shorturl.at/K5Dno #Recrutement #BiologieMoleculaire

Annonce officielle de l’IGFL pour le recrutement du poste cité ci-dessus

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Reposted by Yad Ghavi-Helm

Roland Le Borgne @leborgne.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

Happy New Year 2026! This year, Hadi Boukhatmi, Régis Giet and I are delighted to be organising the 36th French Droso Meeting in Brittany, from 5 to 8 October. A great line-up of speakers Mark the date in your diaries ! The meeting website containing all the details will be opening very soon.

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Yad Ghavi-Helm @yghavi.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

Thanks for the invite Joaquin 😊 It was so nice to discuss with everyone and hear about the exciting science happening at the Biozentrum!

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Yad Ghavi-Helm @yghavi.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

Thanks Babis! Indeed, I love it when simple experiments can sometimes just be enough 🤩 Not everything necessarily needs the heavy OMICs weapons 😜 (And this is from someone who loves genomics!!)

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Reposted by Yad Ghavi-Helm

Babis Galouzis @babisgalouzis.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

This is so cool! It’s also nice to see how careful genetic dissection of loci is still at the forefront of discovery!

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Yad Ghavi-Helm @yghavi.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

It's so nice when 2 stories can complement each other beautifully!! 😄 cooperation >>> competition 👭🪰🐭

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Reposted by Yad Ghavi-Helm

Daniel Ibrahim @danielibrahim.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

a really cool work! everyone check it out! congratulations 🎉👏🏽

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Reposted by Yad Ghavi-Helm

Christa Buecker @chribue.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

super cool to see this out! looking forward to now read the details! Congratulations, Yad and @mmasoura.bsky.social

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Deevitha Balasubramanian @deevithab.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

Thanks Christa! Looking forward to discussing the details in a couple of months 🙂

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Reposted by Yad Ghavi-Helm

Check out our new story on how broad enhancer inputs are restricted into tissue-specific gene expression 🧬 Hint: Promoter-proximal regions are the key!

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To finish, I would like to acknowledge all the members of the lab who made this work possible, in particular @mmasoura.bsky.social, soon to be graduating and on the job market!

Altogether, we believe that these promoter-proximal gatekeepers belong to an emerging class of non-canonical regulatory elements that, together with facilitators and other similar elements, can modulate enhancer activity without acting as enhancers themselves.

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Importantly, this promoter-proximal region does not drive enhancer activity on its own. It only seems to restrict the input of the enhancer. We therefore called it a "gatekeeper".

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While the "generic" hsp70 core promoter can fully respond to E3's input, the expression of the reporter is restricted when combined with the minimal promoter of each of E3's target genes. This minimal promoter includes a ~100bp region upstream of the core promoter.

Instead, we found that the promoter-proximal region of each target gene plays a critical role. Indeed, the ability of a reporter gene to respond to E3's input varies drastically depending on the promoter.

If E3 can drive such complex expression, how is each target gene expressed only in a very specific spatio-temporal window then?? We discovered that the answer does not lie in the sequence of the enhancer or in its ability to form enhancer-promoter loops.

In fact, we realized that E3 is a pleiotropic enhancer that is driving the expression of at least 3 other genes, each expressed in a very different spatio-temporal context.

However, to our surprise, we realized that in reporter assays, the activity of E3 is actually much more complex! The enhancer seemed to be active in tissues and stages when twist is not expressed, including non-mesodermal tissues!

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To reach this conclusion, we first had to study an enhancer in great detail. We did this using the E3 enhancer of twist in Drosophila melanogaster embryos. E3 was previously characterized as a mesodermal enhancer driving the expression of the twist gene during early embryogenesis.

Yad Ghavi-Helm @yghavi.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

Various hypotheses suggested that specificity might have to do with 3D genome organization, the sequence of the core promoter, etc... We now provide evidence that the answer instead lies upstream of the core promoter, in the promoter-proximal region!

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Actually it’s poster 151 and 241!

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Yad Ghavi-Helm @yghavi.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

In the starting blocks for #EDRC2025! Come see our work at posters 100 and 155 and during the Gene expression in the 3D nuclear space workshop!

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Yad Ghavi-Helm @yghavi.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

haha me too! Still a long way to go though...