Pedro Rocha

We are very proud to present our newest paper on the role of Wnt signalling in abscission dynamics in stem cells! A brief thread to entice you to read Snježana’s exciting foray into signalling.

Can we make brains “smarter”? By boosting mitochondrial metabolism in neurons of memory circuits, we improved memory in flies and mice. Thrilled to see this work out - congrats to @amrapalianjali.bsky.social for spectacular work, and to all lab members for invaluable contributions!

Come on join us! We are searching for the next technical associate to join our lab ~Summer 2026.

This could be a great position for someone who is graduating this spring and is looking for 2 more years of research experience before starting their PhD:
careers.peopleclick.com/careerscp/cl...

Liver-X-receptor agonism enhances T cell priming and activation to promote anti-tumor immunity Ostendorf et al. show that activation of liver-X-receptors preconditions T cells to render them more receptive to adopting effector states upon activation.

Delighted to share our new paper on LXR agonism pre-conditioning T cells to more readily adopt effector states, out in @jem.org today. This was a long project started in @sohailtavazoie.bsky.social's lab and completed across the atlantic here in Berlin at Charité.

New preprint from the lab! We dig into the regulatory roles of TEs in the mouse placenta, with some surprising findings. Led by the awesome @smamante.bsky.social. Particular kudos to him for navigating the many twists and turns of the project.

Preprint alert! 🥸

Yajie Zhu (PhD graduate) and Mariano Barbieri (postdoc, @spp2202.bsky.social Accelerator award) produced a package that will classify loops in your #3Dgenomics data based on (whichever) epigenomic data you have available. Keep reading...

1/n

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Preprint alert: Jiangyuan Liu developed a new workflow for chromatin loop calling across Hi-C datasets, e.g., during differentiation. Most loops are shared between datasets/cell states. Important work for all interested in chromatin loops and how to identify them!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Our work on #RegulatoryTrajectories is out today in Nat. Comms: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Led by @raquelrouco.bsky.social, this study establishes a new framework to study how enhancer landscapes act sequentially at developmental loci and are silenced to shape gene expression patterns. (1/n)

Deep conservation of cis-regulatory elements and chromatin organization in echinoderms uncover ancestral regulatory features of animal genomes Nature Ecology & Evolution - Analysis of the 3D chromatin architecture and cis-regulatory elements in a sea urchin and a sea star reveals mechanisms of 3D chromatin organization in echinoderms...

Our work on the evolution of the regulatory genome of echinoderms is now out in @natecoevo.nature.com. Led by my former PhD Marta Magri, Danila Voronov & Saoirse Foley. Great collaboration of Arnone, Hinman & Maeso labs, started long time ago with our missed José Luis Gomez-Skarmeta: rdcu.be/eXX8l

Read in Nature: nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09899-8

Stress controls epigenetic inheritance!

A histone ubiquitylation-based regulatory hub links stress/environmental signaling to heterochromatin self-propagation and epigenetic inheritance-reshaping how we think about development, drug resistance, and cancer
👉 nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09899-8

Glad to share our latest work that came out recently. We dive into the mechanisms of how Transcription Factors (TFs) like the nuclear receptor, ERα navigate the genome to find their targets.

🚨Seeking developmental or cell biologists🔬!🚨
Our department @ucl-cdb.bsky.social is looking to support scientists seeking to establish their lab with a fellowship. Deadline: 30 Jan. Apply here: www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Superstar

🚨Reposts appreciated‼️If I had read this PhD offer five years ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated for a second to apply 😉
Passionate about gene regulation, chromatin, and developmental biology? Just contact @radaiglesiaslab.bsky.social at @ibbtec.bsky.social 🧬✨

#PhD #3DGenome

We recently reported that promoter competition can contribute to the robust insulation of gene regulatory domains (www.nature.com/articles/s41...).
We now offer a 4-years PhD contract to investigate whether the dirsuption of this regulatory mechanism can lead to congenital defects. More details 👇

Our latest paper has just been published in Cell!

doi.org/10.1016/j.ce...

We developed a new method called MCC ultra, which allows 3D chromatin structure to be visualised with a 1 base pair pixel size.

Young KRAB-zinc finger gene clusters are highly dynamic incubators of ERV-driven genetic heterogeneity in mice - Nature Communications KRAB-zinc finger proteins repress retrotransposons and rapidly evolve in mammals. Here, the authors show that ERV insertions drive the emergence and diversification of new KZFP genes in mice, revealin...

Having a lot of fun at #EMBOMobileGenome 😃
Perfect timing for our paper from the lab of @toddmacfarlan.bsky.social to be out @natcomms.nature.com!!

…and I’m currently on the job market looking for a new scientific home!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In vitro approaches to study centriole and cilium function in early mouse embryogenesis Although centrioles and primary cilia play an essential role in early mammalian development, their specific function during the interval between their initial formation and the subsequent arrest of em...

Really excited to see this out in the open: www.life-science-alliance.org/content/9/1/...! @isabellavoelkl.bsky.social explored and compared different in vitro developmental model systems to study ciliogenesis.

Spread the word! There is a professor position opening at our University @upcite.bsky.social. There are several possible (great) labs to join, but if you are interested in DNA methylation and epigenetics in mammals, don't hesitate to contact me directly!

dont know if it’s cheaper but when the labs are not shutdown, we use platinum taq from fisher. very robust even with quickly lysed tails. Not proofreading though

Federal worker here.

Happy to share our latest publication, in which we show that the arrangement of nucleosomes around CTCF sites contributes to higher-order organisation of chromatin into TADs: www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Our collab w. V Goel, @nicholas-aboreden.bsky.social , J Jusuf, G Blobel, L Mirny, @irate-physicist.bsky.social out in @natsmb.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Was co-submitted with @allanaschooley.bsky.social @jobdekker.bsky.social whose paper should also come out soon

Brief thread 👇

Enhancer-promoter compatibility is mediated by the promoter-proximal region Gene promoters induce transcription in response to distal enhancers. How enhancers specifically activate their target promoter while bypassing other promoters remains unclear. Here, we find that the p...

What is a promoter? And how does it work?

We very happy to share our latest work trying to understand enhancer-promoter compatibility.
I am very excited about the results of @blanka-majchrzycka.bsky.social, which changed the way I think about promoters

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Promoter-proximal gatekeepers restrict pleiotropic enhancer inputs to achieve tissue specificity Developmental enhancers are central regulatory elements that can activate multiple genes, yet how they selectively regulate one gene over its neighbours remains unclear. Using the Drosophila twist E3 ...

Ever wondered what drives enhancer-promoter specificity? Why would an enhancer activate one gene rather than another neighboring one?

Check our latest preprint, led by @mmasoura.bsky.social, to find out!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

If you’re interested in exploring the relationship between chromatin organization and epigenetic memory using chromatin tracing microscopy, my group is recruiting a talented PhD student 🥳

Poising and connectivity of emergent human developmental enhancers in the transition from naive to primed pluripotency In primed human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) resembling post-implantation epiblast, numerous lineage-specific enhancers assume the poised chromatin state, co-marked by H3K4me1 and Polycomb-associate...

Many enhancers that drive tissue-specific gene expression are already connected to gene promoters in human pluripotent cells.

In a new preprint, we share some clues about when, how, and why this happens!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Loop extrusion provides mechanical robustness to chromatin Chromosomes are complex biopolymers folded into dynamic loops via a loop extrusion process and may experience various mechanical forces in vivo . We develop a force-dependent model of chromatin loop e...

New preprint from the lab !! Loop extrusion may provide mechanical robustness to chromatin. Great work by Hossein Salari. @cnrs.fr @lbmcinlyon.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Morphogen and juxtacrine signalling dynamically integrate to specify cell fates with single-cell resolution Morphogen gradients guide tissue patterning but do not act in isolation. How they integrate with other signalling modalities, like juxtacrine signalling, and how these integrations influence pattern r...

Interested in morphogens and how they can robustly specifiy different cell types with single-cell resolution?
Check out this preprint combining experiments and modelling by our colleagues and partners in crime @ucl-cdb.bsky.social:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🚨Please share! We are hiring a post-doc! 🪱 🐀
Job posting: www.training.nih.gov/jobs/pdf-gb-...
Lab Website: www.niddk.nih.gov/research-fun...
NIH Trainee info: www.training.nih.gov