Jeff Saucerman

Of course a painting won't get everything right but may fuel discussion. Wasn't planning on anyone wanting a copy but if you'd like I can look into it 😁.

Thanks! Basic idea is you start as mesoderm (top left) and then as development proceeds you suddenly fall off the cliff and are cardiac progenitor. No way to go back. The math also indicates there should be a window where both cells are present, but no hybrid mesoderm-cardiac single cells.

Brahma safeguards canalization of cardiac mesoderm differentiation - Nature The BAF chromatin-remodelling complex ATPase gene Brm safeguards cell identity during directed cardiogenesis of mouse embryonic stem cells.

Here's our paper on which this was inspired www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Just started painting again after many years, working on a few others in this theme of math in the heart.

My painting of some fun math that we found to be key in cardiac development. We showed that the abrupt switch from mesoderm to cardiac progenitor is driven by a pair of saddle node bifurcations. #sciart

Congratulations! 🎇

Missed the #aurora but still good stargazing in #cville

Happy New Year! Just 5 days until the 4th Netflux and Network Biology Virtual Conference on Jan 7, 1-5 pm ET. Please share. Agenda and free registration at: tinyurl.com/netfluxnet2026

Reduced TBX5 dosage undermines developmental control of atrial cardiomyocyte identity in a model of human atrial disease While atrial septal defects (ASDs) and atrial fibrillation (AF) present differently, there is evidence that they share some genetic basis. Here, we used directed differentiation of human induced pluri...

Accepted ms on modeling human atrial disease posted @dev-journal.bsky.social just now. Congratulations to @irfankathiriya.bsky.social @jsauce7.bsky.social and team! @gladstoneinst.bsky.social @ucsfanesthesia.bsky.social journals.biologists.com/dev/article-...

More 🥾 pics

Snowy hike to Hawksbill Summit, Shenandoah NP

Making the Right Moves is great www.hhmi.org/sites/defaul...

Always fun collaborating on networks of cardiac development with Irfan, @benoitbruneau.bsky.social, and team!

The 4th Netflux and Network Biology Virtual Conference is coming, Jan 7! Talks on network modeling across methods and biological systems. Free! tinyurl.com/netfluxnet2026

More snow hike pics, Percival's Island, #Lynchburg

Winter wonderland 🥾❄️

Here's the comparison of time-evolving phase portraits of cardiac differentiation in WT (2 saddlenode bifurcations: mono->bi->new monostable) vs. Brm-KO (reversal of 1 saddlenode bifurcation: mono->bi->old bistable)

Still, I'm very excited by the potential for more generalized Waddington/energy landscapes such as yours for revealing a wide range of transition types.

In contrast, as @benoitbruneau.bsky.social noted the original Waddington diagram only shows pitchfork bifurcations (2 stable states split off from 1)

Great questions, agreed! There are a number of possible transition types. I think this demo by my daughter of how Brahma KO breaks the second saddle node bifurcation was surprisingly our most intuitive.

Yes this is very cool! Our Brahma model was more focused and hypothesis driven, but would be cool to see if this data driven approach can find the saddle node bifurcations automatically.

I think "should" is very important during review. "Suffering happens in the gap we hold between the expectations we have (of preliminary data) and reality."
— Poppy Jamie

Would love to see a survey on what percent of an NIH grant should already be completed as preliminary data.

Sure thanks will DM!

Announcing the 4th Netflux and Network Biology Virtual Conference, Jan 7! Free registration and abstract submission (Dec 12). Live demo of the new user-friendly Netflux webapp, student talks, keynote by Suzanne Gaudet (Novartis): bit.ly/4i1eQD6

Sauce lab dressed for Halloween as favorite proteins! 🎃👻🕷️. I was a serotonin receptor bound to LexaPro for Taylors recent paper.

More Riprap #hiking

Rain fog and leaves turning along Riprap. One of my favorite trails in Shenandoah NP. #hiking

These show that neuregulin-1 induces cardiomyocyte Feret elongation via sustained PI3K signaling, while transient p38 signaling increases cell size but not shape. This study leverages experimental-computational methods to dissect how signaling dynamics distinctly regulate cell size vs. shape. 3/3

We first characterized the proteomic, gene expression, and phenotypic responses of cardiomyocytes (including our new cell shape metric Feret elongation) to diverse ligands. We integrated this data with data-driven and mechanistic computational models, validated with new perturbation experiments. 2/