Luca Braccioli Lab @ UU

More on enhancers at #gfe2026, with @bracciolilab.bsky.social exploring how long-distance, DNA loops are formed through CTCF and cohesin interactions in gastruloids. Removing CTCF early severely affects morphogenesis, but not differentiation, and is dependent on CTCF looping function. #gfe2026

REMINDER!!!

Join us for two days of discussions on blastoids, gastruloids, pluripotency, gametogenesis, implantation, and the ethical dimensions of embryo models.

🧬 We are excited to announce the
INTERNATIONAL DUTCH EMBRYO MODEL MEETING 2026
— Engineering the Origins of Life

📅 7–8 May 2026
📍 Utrecht, The Netherlands

Register & submit abstracts:
www.oncodeinstitute.nl/internationa...

🧬 We are excited to announce the
INTERNATIONAL DUTCH EMBRYO MODEL MEETING 2026
— Engineering the Origins of Life

📅 7–8 May 2026
📍 Utrecht, The Netherlands

Register & submit abstracts:
www.oncodeinstitute.nl/internationa...

Join us for two days of discussions on blastoids, gastruloids, pluripotency, gametogenesis, implantation, and the ethical dimensions of embryo models.

🧬 We are excited to announce the
INTERNATIONAL DUTCH EMBRYO MODEL MEETING 2026
— Engineering the Origins of Life

📅 7–8 May 2026
📍 Utrecht, The Netherlands

Register & submit abstracts:
www.oncodeinstitute.nl/internationa...

Register now for the second Hubrecht Symposium, themed Molecular Machines in Development in Utrecht on March 26, 2026.

Visit hubrecht.eu/hubrecht-symposium-2026/ for registration and abstract submission.

Abstract submission deadline: February 1, 2026.

Reminder: Tomorrow is VGZT day! 🚀

Don’t miss great talks from
👉 Luca Braccioli (@bracciolilab.bsky.social)
👉 Komal Makwana (on X: @Komal_Makwana4)

Here is a copy of last year's Twitter thread explaining our preprint - jump to (21) for the new stuff 👀

Synergy between cis-regulatory elements can render cohesin dispensable for distal enhancer function

now revised and journal accepted at www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🧵👇

🧩 What breaks when you remove DNA loop extrusion?
Gastruloids show it: not lineage decisions… but morphogenesis.

That’s our contribution to www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Huge thanks to the amazing @karissalhansen.bsky.social + @elphegenoralab.bsky.social for leading this fantastic work 🙌

IT'S HAPPENING! 💥 I'm psyched to launch the collaboration between @qedscience.bsky.social & @openrxiv.bsky.social @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social! Preprint + q.e.d = your science is out there, and anyone can appreciate it. Let's care about making discoveries, and not on “getting published” (1/3) 👇

Daniel Kahneman's imaginary sabbatical in a fly lab continues...this time: The art of letting go.

Have you felt the pain of stopping while standardising a new method? Or letting go of a project? When to stop, when to persist?
Have a read @the-node.bsky.social
thenode.biologists.com/the-kahneman...

Ascidians (Ciona intestinalis)🪸Our distant chordate cousins! 🌊 Simple sea squirts that reveal how vertebrate body plans evolved 🧬 A key model for notochord formation, neural induction, and cell lineage mapping 📸 Video by MBL Embryology 2019 #ModelMonday #DevBio #EvoDevo

Three short talks now at #GenBio25. @bracciolilab.bsky.social discusses the ability of cells to contribute to different lineages in a gastruloid model. Luca recently published an ‘In preprints’ article in @dev-journal.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1242/dev....

Congratulations Luca and the rest of the team, exciting story!

Once again super congrats to you, Christine, Bas and the rest of the team!!!

Very proud of our paper on "scrambling-by-hopping" LADs, which was just published: www.nature.com/articles/s41.... Congrats to Lise Dauban and the rest of the team – this was a real tour-de-force!

(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...

It was a pleasure reading your work, excited about the next developments!

Big thanks to my PhD student @wesselbrouwer.bsky.social and @dev-journal.bsky.social

In preprints: gastruloids get (a)head A major breakthrough in the field of mammalian embryology is the development of stem-cell based embryo models. Derived from pluripotent stem cells, such as embryonic stem cells or induced pluripotent ...

Ever wondered how to get a gastruloid to grow a head?

The Bulut-Karslioğlu lab figured out that by growing different stem cell aggregates in high and low oxygen and later assembling them, you can get gastruloids with a fully formed neural tube. Check out our "In preprints": doi.org/10.1242/dev....

We are searching for an enthusiastic scientist to join our team and establish annual killifish as a model system for early developmental biology and biophysics! @embl.org @embldbunit.bsky.social

Apply here:
embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/EMBL/job/Hei...

Please re-post 🙏

NIPBL dosage shapes genome folding by tuning the rate of cohesin loop extrusion Cohesin loop extrusion is a major driver of chromosome folding, but how its dynamics are controlled to shape the genome remains elusive. Here we disentangle the contributions of the cohesin cofactors ...

New preprint with @gfudenberg.bsky.social

We find the rate of cohesin loop extrusion in cells is set by NIPBL dosage and tunes many aspects of chromosome folding.

This provides a molecular basis for NIPBL haploinsufficiency in humans. 🧵👇

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

PhD position in Gene Regulation Are you excited about studying the crucial process of transcription? Join our supportive, young and growing team!

The Vlaming lab is expanding! If you are or know a good prospective PhD student, excited about studying transcription, please (suggest them to) apply here: www.uu.nl/en/organisat...
My biased opinion: exciting topic, super nice colleagues, and great research environment in a lovely city.

Two new preprints from the @arjunraj.bsky.social‬ on #gastruloids. Both excellent. Exploring the relationship between macroscopic reproducibility v microscopic heterogeneity. Stunning experiments and much to think about
biorxiv.org/content/earl...
biorxiv.org/content/earl...

Please pread the word.

We have just launched the Hubrecht International PhD Program (HIPP).

Are you looking for a PhD position in molecular and developmental biology or related subject in an international, very supportive and collaborative environment?

Then apply to the HIPP!! 👇

Congratulations Adriano!!!

Excellent work supporting #modularity of the mammalian #embryo, a role for #hypoxia & how development exploits these features. It shows what we can learn from assemblies of #gastruloids @ spatio-temporal coordination of the modules in AP organization. Putting modules together, extremely informative