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Zena Hadjivasiliou

@zenahadjivasiliou.bsky.social
281 followers 239 following 31 posts

Group Leader Mathematical and Physical Biology Lab @TheCrick and @UCL Physics. Interested in how size, shape and patterns develop and evolve; www.hadjivasilioulab.com.

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Reposted by Zena Hadjivasiliou
Rita Mateus @ritamateus.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
New preprint alert!!! Super proud to finally share an authentic 'tour-de-force' from the amazing PhD students Shivani Gunnan @shivanigunnan.bsky.social, Max Kotz and Lucas Ribas, in collaboration with @friedrich-group.bsky.social 👇a small thread www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Developmental growth rates adapt to enable self-correction of organ morphology after injury.
Proportional organ growth requires tissue-level control of cell behavior. Yet the cues that adapt growth rates, especially after organ injury, remain unclear. Here, we uncover that developing organs a...
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Reposted by Zena Hadjivasiliou
Zebrafish Rock! 🎃 @zebrafishrock.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Very cool preprint from the Mateus Lab🔥 🧪
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Zena Hadjivasiliou @zenahadjivasiliou.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Kudos to first authors Alicia Donoghue and our own Lewis Mosby that drove this forward! And thanks to @ucllifesciences.bsky.social for covering the work 🙏
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Zena Hadjivasiliou @zenahadjivasiliou.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Our latest @crick.ac.uk @ucllifesciences.bsky.social @ucl-ipls.bsky.social fresh @currentbiology.bsky.social 💥. How can morphogens specify cell fate at single cell precision? A little help from Notch, ERK and glia can go a long way! A collab with the wonderful Vil Fernandes 🪰📈
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James Briscoe @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
New in @dev-journal.bsky.social: how tissue shape tells cells what to become Using human stem-cell neuruloids, we show how that physical boundaries encode positional information that drives cell fate patterning in a model of trunk formation A thread 🧵 journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...
journals.biologists.com
Boundary constraints can determine pattern emergence
Summary: A reaction-diffusion mechanism recapitulates pattern emergence in an in vitro model of neuromesodermal progenitors under a variety of boundary and geometrical perturbations.
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Celso Martins @celsomics.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
How did gametes evolve to become different? Our new study shows that genetically identical gametes already differ in reproductive investment and costs, revealing hidden sexual asymmetries. @vjesticalab.bsky.social @zenahadjivasiliou.bsky.social @pnas.org #Harry_Booth www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
pnas.org
Meiotic cohesin Rec8 imposes fitness costs on fission yeast gametes favoring the evolution of parental bias in gene expression | PNAS
Differences between partner gametes, which evolved repeatedly in eukaryotes, can contribute to the evolution of the sexes, sexual selection, and no...
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Reposted by Zena Hadjivasiliou
vjesticalab.bsky.social @vjesticalab.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Why did the two gametes (egg♀️ and sperm♂️) start to become different? It's a strategy to optimize the costs and benefits of investing into offspring! Read our brand new @pnas.org story that finds a molecular mechanism behind this evolutionary idea proposed in 1972 by Parker, Bell and Smith.
doi.org
Meiotic cohesin Rec8 imposes fitness costs on fission yeast gametes favoring the evolution of parental bias in gene expression | PNAS
Differences between partner gametes, which evolved repeatedly in eukaryotes, can contribute to the evolution of the sexes, sexual selection, and no...
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Reposted by Zena Hadjivasiliou
Faculté de biologie et de médecine @fbm-unil.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Take a look at the Center for Integrative Genomics (CIG) blog to know everything about a humble #yeast #cell who is helping scientists to answer a 50-year-old question: how did one #partner #evolve to #invest #more than the other? 👀 www.genomyx.ch/the-little-k... @unil.bsky.social
genomyx.ch
The Little-Known Dating Scene That Predates the Evolution of the Sexes | CIG – NEWS
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Zena Hadjivasiliou @zenahadjivasiliou.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Such fun collab with the @vjesticalab.bsky.social @unil.bsky.social, revisiting the first question I became obsessed with as a PhD student: why do cells that fuse during sex need to differ genetically even when they look the same? 🙌 Celso Martin and Harry Booth for beautiful experiments+theory work
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Virtual Gastrulation Zoom Talks @vgzt2021.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Exciting VGZT session this week! 🎉 🗓️ Thursday, July 2nd ⏰ 9:30 PDT / 12:30 EDT / 17:30 BST / 18:30 CEST Our speakers are: 👉 Silvia Santos (@santoslab.bsky.social) 👉 Diana Pinheiro (@dianapinheiro.bsky.social) See you there! 👋
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Yanlan Mao @yanlanmao.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Bring your family, friends and pupils to join us for a fun day of science! @compscitsui.bsky.social @alomshaha.bsky.social
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Reposted by Zena Hadjivasiliou
Nicoletta Petridou @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Here the published version of our work on uncoupling different types of tissue phase transitions during development! Find out more on how contact surface tension-driven rigidity transitions trigger tricellular junction formation and initiate epithelial organization! @natphys.nature.com
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The Francis Crick Institute @crick.ac.uk · 03/06/2026
In a collaboration between the Crick and @embl.org, researchers used a mix of experimental work in zebrafish and theoretical modelling to discover a feedback loop between an embryo’s changing material properties, such as its rigidity, and the signalling molecules that guide patterning.
crick.ac.uk
The physical properties behind an embryo’s body plan
How rigid a tissue is coordinates a crucial period of cell patterning, ensuring that embryos develop the right shape and organise their cell layers correctly at the same time.
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Reposted by Zena Hadjivasiliou
Ben Steventon @bensteventon.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Excited to announce Physics of Living Matter 19! To be held in Cambridge 24-25th September 2026: www.plm-symposium.org
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Reposted by Zena Hadjivasiliou
Berta Verd @bertaverd.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
New Pre-Print Alert! Evolving initial conditions: an alternative developmental route to morphological diversity with Shannon Taylor and @jamesehammond.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Naomi Moris @nmoris.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
I am giving a "Crash Course in Embryo Development" for the general public (no science background needed! pitched around GCSE-level) in London on 21st May www.crick.ac.uk/whats-on/cri... We'll dip into development, with a splash of embryo models, and a pinch of ethics. And it's free! Book online 👍
crick.ac.uk
Crick Crash Course: Embryo development
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Zena Hadjivasiliou @zenahadjivasiliou.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
Spring PhD recruitment round @crick.ac.uk is now open and we have a project on offer: www.crick.ac.uk/careers-stud.... If you have a background in maths or physics and are curious about patterning and growth in biology this could be the project for you! Please help us spread the word 💥
crick.ac.uk
Hadjivasiliou Lab | Patterning in dynamic environments
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Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics @kitp-ucsb.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
Advanced grad students + postdocs: apply for the 2026 #kitpqbio summer course, "Physical Principles of Morphogenesis in Plants and Animals," at buff.ly/OXXMKEv. Apply by Feb. 1. Course directors Adrienne Roeder (Cornell) and Sebastian Streichan (UCSB)
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David Brückner @davidbrueckner.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
How can cells use information from neighboring cells to improve the spatial precision of morphogen patterns? 🤔 We show that cells can gain positional information by "talking" to their neighbors - how much depends critically on spatial correlations of the patterns. buff.ly/w56OUJT
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Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) @istaresearch.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
🔬 New paper in Developmental Biology 🐟 Our researchers have now tested a largely ignored hypothesis—that the geometry of an embryo drives its development. Read more in the 🧵below. 📷 Zebrafish in ISTA’s Aquatic Facility.
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Zena Hadjivasiliou @zenahadjivasiliou.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Are you looking for a PhD in Biological Physics / Math Biology? We are recruiting at UCL, link to apply now active: www.findaphd.com/phds/project... Project very flexible, drop me a line if you are interested and want to find out more.
findaphd.com
Mechanochemical feedback during developmental patterning and morphogenesis at University College London on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - Mechanochemical feedback during developmental patterning and morphogenesis at University College London, listed on FindAPhD.com
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The Francis Crick Institute @crick.ac.uk · 18/11/2025
Researchers have identified a signalling feedback loop that may have been vital to the evolution of insect wings and therefore flight. The signals, called morphogens, act like lighthouses in most developing tissues, guiding nearby cells towards their fate. www.crick.ac.uk/news/2025-11...
crick.ac.uk
When evolution took flight
Researchers have revealed how a genetic circuit may have helped the evolution of insect wings.
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Tanmay Bharat @tbharat-lab.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
An Asgard archaeon with internal membrane compartments Brilliant study led by @fmacleod.bsky.social and Andriko von Kügelgen. Tight collaboration with @buzzbaum.bsky.social and lab. Congrats to all authors! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Camilla Autorino @cami-autorino.bsky.social · 07/11/2025
Looking forward to this meeting!! Join us this February in Heidelberg 🦋🪰🐟🐁🌱🧫🦠
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Zena Hadjivasiliou @zenahadjivasiliou.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
🔊 We are looking for a PhD student to join our group and the vibrant community @ucl.ac.uk @ucl-ipls.bsky.social and @crick.ac.uk 💥. Details on the call: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPF708/5... and our project on offer: ucl-epsrc-dtp.github.io/2026-27-proj.... Please share and drop me a line if interested!
jobs.ac.uk
50 fully funded 4-year EPSRC PhD Studentships in Science and Engineering at UCL
Start your UK & international job search for academic jobs, research jobs, science jobs and managerial jobs in leading universities and top...
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Zena Hadjivasiliou @zenahadjivasiliou.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
Couldn’t be prouder of the first PhD graduate of the lab, super congrats @danafd.bsky.social 🙌🎓🌟. Such a pleasure to supervise you together with @cohouart.bsky.social @houartlab.bsky.social, the learning journey never ends 😌. Huge thanks to @jamesasharpe.bsky.social and Sylvie Retaux for examining 💥
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Nora Martin @n-martin.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
Opportunity for a Master’s/Bachelor’s student: - Join us for up to 5 months 🗓️ - Build computational/mathematical models 💻 - Learn about genotype-phenotype maps and evolution 🧬 - Work closely with PhD student Manuela Giraud - full info here: www.crg.eu/en/content/t...
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Reposted by Zena Hadjivasiliou
The Francis Crick Institute @crick.ac.uk · 09/10/2025
We're now recruiting early career group leaders at the Crick to lead ambitious research programmes and explore bold scientific questions. Hear our Director, Edith Heard, explain why the Crick is a unique place for curiosity-driven research. Apply now ➡️ www.crick.ac.uk/careers-stud...
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Alberto Elosegui-Artola @aeloseguiartola.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
Don’t miss the exciting ISSCR Webinar: Integrating Biophysics into Stem Cell Biology next Tuesday October 14! The webinar features paired tandem talks that brings together experimentalists and theorists working at the interface of stem cell biology and biophysics. 1/2 www.isscr.org/upcoming-pro...
isscr.org
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Thibaut Brunet @thibautbrunet.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
Latest from ours: www.cell.com/cell-reports... This is two stories in one: a case study/cautionary tale on developing genetic tools in new organisms, and the first hint at a gene regulatory network for choanoflagellate multicellular development (which turn out to involve a Hippo/YAP/ECM loop!) A 🧵
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The Francis Crick Institute @crick.ac.uk · 02/10/2025
Motivated graduates with backgrounds in biological or biomedical sciences, physics, chemistry, mathematics, engineering and/or computer science are invited to apply to our 4-year fully funded PhD programme. Apply by 05 November 2025 www.crick.ac.uk/careers-and-...
crick.ac.uk
PhD students
Our PhD programme attracts the brightest scientific minds and is an opportunity for talented people to embark on their career in biomedical research.
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Sadra Sadeh @sdrsd.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
We have a PhD project here, along with many other cool projects: "Characterising and predicting seizure onsets from longitudinal sEEG data", www.crick.ac.uk/careers-and-... with @flor-iacaruso.bsky.social (Crick), Torsten Baldeweg (UCL) and Martin Tisdall (UCL). Apply by: 14 November 2025.
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Buzz Baum @buzzbaum.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
LMB PhD studentship available in the Baum lab to use informatics to infer cell structure from genomic data in collaboration with the brilliant Tom Williams. If you write to me and I don’t reply - try again - the spam filter is hungry…
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EMBL @embl.org · 29/09/2025
New research from EMBL scientists is shedding light on how shape transitions help tissue boundaries form during development. The results reveal a new class of adaptive material dynamics & could provide design principles for smart materials that respond to changing environments.
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David Brückner @davidbrueckner.bsky.social · 29/09/2025
Come join us in Basel! @biozentrum.unibas.ch is an amazing place to start your group.
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Guillaume Charras @gcharras.bsky.social · 29/09/2025
Can pressure gradients persist over long timescales in animal cells? We induced intracellular pressure gradients and examined the resulting flows in single cells. We reveal surprisingly long lasting pressure gradients. More here: elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...
elifesciences.org
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Akankshi Munjal @akankshi.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
Our latest preprint! Into morphogenesis, Yap, ECM, signaling, vertex models, feedbacks/robustness? There is something here for everyone. We discovered a positive feedback loop that extends inner ear canals, and a built-in mechanism that shuts it down when morphogenesis is done. tinyurl.com/464wsjhd
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Zena Hadjivasiliou @zenahadjivasiliou.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
🚨New Preprint🚨 How do morphogens integrate dynamically with other modes of signalling+what can this do for pattern precision and robustness? We used the Drosophila visual system as our muse to dive into this question with the amazing Vil Fernandes @ucl.ac.uk 🧠🪰 👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
biorxiv.org
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Rashmi Priya @rashmi-priya.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
Development does not happen in isolation! Material properties, geometry, stiffness, fluid flows...can all steer how development unfolds. If you’re exploring these kinds of questions, we’d love to see your work @dev-journal.bsky.social More info below ⬇️
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Zena Hadjivasiliou @zenahadjivasiliou.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
I love the Ig Nobel prizes, asking questions for the sake of curiosity is so inherent to being human and the reason I love doing science. Make some notes for your pasta protocols y'all!
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Levayer Lab @levayerr.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
We only had a very minor contribution to this story with Alexis, but definitly worth a reading for those interested by patterning, precision and refinment. Nice combining of quantitative live imaging, modeling and optogenetics to dissect vein patterning dynamics www.cell.com/developmenta...
cell.com
Signaling-dependent refinement of cell fate choice during tissue remodeling in Drosophila pupal wings
Herszterg et al. show that during morphogenesis of the Drosophila pupal wing, a wave of Notch signaling activity updates cell fates to ensure robust and precise patterning of wing veins.
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Jan Rombouts @janrombouts.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
Please allow me to introduce... our new preprint 🎉 Together with Michael Zhao, Anna Erzberger and Alexander Aulehla, we investigate pattern formation due to aggregation in confined systems. You can find it at arxiv.org/abs/2509.08533 @michaelzhao.bsky.social @erzbergerlab.bsky.social
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wbialek.bsky.social @wbialek.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
We have been fortunate to have a stream of extraordinary Fellows as part of our community. They have gone on to wonderful positions .. It is time, once more, to renew. Our annual search is a chance for us to understand what the brightest young people in the community are doing! Please apply!
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The Francis Crick Institute @crick.ac.uk · 16/09/2025
Crick researchers have generated a computer simulation of the evolution of gene networks, which has helped them establish general principles about the evolution of body patterns over time. www.crick.ac.uk/news/2025-09...
crick.ac.uk
How evolution rewires gene circuits to build new patterns
TBC
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Zena Hadjivasiliou @zenahadjivasiliou.bsky.social · 16/09/2025
Fresh from the press💥 We asked what happens when you evolve gene regulatory networks computationally at scale. Do general principles of GRN evolution jump out? Is the process predictable? Read on to find out @prxlife.bsky.social @crick.ac.uk @ucl-ipls.bsky.social 👉 journals.aps.org/prxlife/abst...
journals.aps.org
Gene Network Organization, Mutation, and Selection Collectively Drive Developmental Pattern Evolvability and Predictability
The historical order in which mutations appear during evolution determine the evolutionary trajectory of gene regulatory networks and influence how developmental patterns change and diversify over tim...
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Ryan Savill @cryaaa.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
(1/14) I’m happy and proud to introduce: SpinePy – a framework to detect the "spine" of gastruloids and measure biological and physical signals in a local dynamic 3D coordinate system. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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John Wallingford @jbwallingford.bsky.social · 15/09/2025
Side hustle level-up! My book, IN THE BEGINNING, will be published by @harperonebooks.bsky.social in 2027! It's about the human embryo, how it gets built, and what it means for where we come from and where we're going. @harpercollins.bsky.social (1/2) @socdevbio.bsky.social #devbiol #scicomm
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Sara Wickstrom @sarawickstrom.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
My lab @mpi-muenster.bsky.social is looking for a computational biologist with a passion for imaging and spatial biology. A staff scientist position with long-term perspective! Apply and spread the word 🙏 jobs.mpi-muenster.mpg.de/jobposting/0...
jobs.mpi-muenster.mpg.de
Computational image analyst (m/f/d)
The Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster, Germany, has an opening for a
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Giulia Paci @giuliapaci.bsky.social · 11/08/2025
Thrilled to share the first story from my postdoc! 🎉 A wonderful experiment + simulations collaboration. In the Drosophila wing, we find that 3D cell shapes affect signalling range and fine-tune developmental patterning www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Thread below ⬇️
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Rashmi Priya @rashmi-priya.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
Out now! Our very first paper@crick.ac.uk, an impressive feat by @tobyandrews.bsky.social where we show how a developing heart grows and scales up its morphological complexity to keep beating...an excellent summary below ⬇️ www.cell.com/developmenta...
cell.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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