@michaeltconnelly
Postdoc Fellow at NHGRI, Research Associate at Smithsonian NMNH. Cnidarian evolution, symbiosis, cell biology, and conservation genomics. PhD at University of Miami Rosenstiel School. Posts are my own. 🪼🪸🧬💙
Exciting announcement! My new department is launching a postdoc fellowship in quantitative biology. Fellows will be co-advised by two Bio faculty, one that is quant focused (not me) and one that is not (me???). I would love to co-sponsor a postdoc and build a collaboration so please reach out!
A new Hydractinia single-cell atlas from the Schnitzler lab: >47K cells from feeding polyps and stolon tissue that refines major somatic cell lineages and recovers a novel population of putative immune cells – a valuable resource for the cnidarian research community and beyond! tinyurl.com/hsymSC
Science: only when you write up the manuscript, you realize what you should have done.
Genome skimming yields thousands of loci, recovering mitochondrial genomes and nuclear markers.
Other benefits are higher phylogenetic resolution, success with degraded samples, and compatibility with future bait sets (i.e., future-proof).
Read more here:
🔗 naturalhistory.si.edu/research/inv...
Now that shutdown is over, I'm looking forward to #SICB2026 in Portland, Oregon in January! Please check out Session 18: A Stinging Sense of Self: Cnidarian Cell Type Evolution on Sunday Jan. 4 at 10:00am! Also please reach out if you're interested in making lunch/dinner plans during the conference!
Reading this week: muscles! 💪🧬
Overview of Muscle Cytoskeleton
(pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28640448/)
Microtubules coordinate mitochondria transport... during muscle development
(doi.org/10.1016/j.de...)
Evolutionary origin of bilaterian smooth and striated myocytes
(pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27906129/)
Microtubules: the architect of muscles. Watch how microtubules transport mitochondria in proximity to energy consuming sarcomeres in muscles of flies and mice. @jeromeavellaneda.bsky.social @nunoluis.bsky.social @ibdm.bsky.social with @gomeslabo.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Alberto Rivera of the Baxevanis group @baxevanislab.bsky.social presents on the allorecognition in cnidarians 🪸
There is evidence for synteny and conservation across allorecognition complexes in Cnidaria... How does this compare to bilaterians?
#Evol2025 #Evol25
What I'm reading this (short) week:
🤖 Cell type evolution reconstruction across species through cell phylogenies of scRNAseq data (www.nature.com/articles/s41...)
🧬 Origin and evolution of eukaryotic transcription factors
(doi.org/10.1016/j.gd...)
What I'm reading this week:
Nanos2 marks precursors of somatic lineages and is req'd for germline formation in Nematostella (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...)
Chromatin loops are an ancestral hallmark of the animal regulatory genome
(www.nature.com/articles/s41...)
- many thanks to the authors!
What I'm reading this week 😀
Cubozoan transcriptome and neuropeptide identification (rdcu.be/emF7h)
Nematostella mechanosensory neuron diversity
(rdcu.be/emF7X)
Cnidarian larvae sensory cell types and settlement
(doi.org/10.1126/scia...)
Siphonophore chromosome-scale genome
(doi.org/10.1101/2025...)
Our chromosome-scale genome assembly of Nanomia septata, a siphonophore - doi.org/10.1101/2025... . Much larger than many other cnidarian genomes, fewer chromosomes, and highly rearranged. No smoking gun for how they achieve complex colony-level organization. Great work Namrata Ahuja and friends!
Despite how things ended, I still learned so much from my time at EPA about how applied, interdisciplinary science can drive progress on complex problems like climate change. I look forward to taking these experiences into my next chapter, with more details on that soon! 7/7
🌟We are excited to announce the non-bilaterian satellite symposia at PASEDB meeting Miami July 22, 2025! 🪼🪸 #pasedb #evodevo
Organizers: Drs. Athula Wikarmanayake, Bill Browne & @natclarke.bsky.social
Register here: evodevo.wildapricot.org/event-6007396
Graduate students can apply for the Robert D. Hevey, Jr. and Constance M. Filling Fellowship in Invertebrate Zoology at the Smithsonian. Applications due 28 April 2025. More info: https://naturalhistory.si.edu/research/invertebrate-zoology #gradstudent
1/4 🚨 a brand new @biorxiv preprint from the lab! We charcterized both transcriptionally, morphologically and functionally (phagocytosis) immune cells from #Nematostella! We are convinced that our data supports the existence of such specialized cells! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧵
Application reviews for a postdoc in my lab will begin next week. Two years of funding to conduct EvoDevo research using cnidarians.
Dr. Andrea Quattrini holding up a big orange coral while standing in a room full of drawers that contain corals.
Congrats to Dr. Andrea Quattrini (Coral Curator, SI NMNH) for winning The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers!
This is the highest honor bestowed by the United States federal government on outstanding scientists in the early stages of their independent research careers!
Mike Connelly from our group sharing his hot-off-the-10X Podocoryna single-cell data @SICB2025, establishing a really solid foundation for future work on this very interesting and informative regenerative cnidarian. Stay tuned... more to follow!
Looking forward to this symposium at #SICB2025 and meeting all the researchers in attendance!
Cnidofest is excited to join the bluesky party! We will start a Cnidarian starter pack. Please like this post if you'd like to be in the pack!
This week's beautiful #MicroscopyMonday is a juvenile Nematostella with stinging cells labeled with eGFP (green). (Gibson Lab) #Biology
Coral colony on the sea floor
Check, check, is this thing on?
Allow me to introduce myself! I'm Mike Connelly, and I'm an evolutionary biologist - currently a postdoc at the National Human Genome Research Institute and research associate at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
I love cnidarians (esp. corals)!🪸