Beverly Piggott's Avatar

Beverly Piggott

@beverly-piggott

Asst. Prof. at the U of Montana. Previously Jan Lab @ UCSF, U-Michigan. Fly neurobiologist. ❤️ ion channels, brain development, the great outdoors. #newPI opinions are my own.

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Latest posts by Beverly Piggott @beverly-piggott

Dpn, Ase, Brat, aPKC

08.03.2026 23:55 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Enhancing autophagy by redox regulation extends lifespan in Drosophila - Nature Communications Redox signalling is emerging as an important regulator of metabolism and physiology, which is dysregulated in ageing and disease. Here, the authors show that redox regulation of a key redox sensitive ...

🎉Excited to share our latest paper, published in Nature Communications!🎉

"Enhancing autophagy by redox regulation extends lifespan in Drosophila"

#redox #metabolism #ageing #Drosophila

@natcomms.nature.com @mrc-lms.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1038/s414...

27.06.2025 11:21 👍 88 🔁 37 💬 8 📌 2
Systemic extracellular acidification is a hallmark of aging Understanding the critical pathophysiological processes that promote age-related disease is needed to uncover effective targets for preventive medicine. Here, we investigate how extracellular pH changes with age and its impact on longevity, using fly and mouse models. We find that extracellular acidification occurs in flies during aging and correlates to mortality rate. With age, flies also become more susceptible to die from acidotic stress, which can be prevented by alkalotic treatment. Acidification is caused by insufficient acid elimination, linked to downregulation of genes in the fly excretory tract that control pH and ATP production, essential for active secretion initiation. In mice, we show that lymph-drained interstitial fluids acidify with age. Expression of genes, whose pathogenic loss-of-function variants cause tubular acidosis in humans, is decreased in the kidneys of aging mice. Overall, this study sheds light on dysregulated systemic acid-base balance as a conserved pathophysiological mechanism of aging. ### Competing Interest Statement N.L.T. and E.C. are inventors of the lymph-directing glyceride prodrug technology (WO2016023082 and PCT/AU2020/050997), which has been patented and licensed via a commercial agreement with PureTechHealth and Seaport Therapeutics. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

Reporting not only on ROS accumulation with age (measured by cysteine oxidation) but remarkably acidification of very tightly controlled pH of the hemolymph (might be a general but overlooked aspect of aging including in humans). A really cool result! See preprint: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

08.03.2026 14:26 👍 6 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0

Tragic. Please pass this along to US Chairs and Deans, and consider it when you sit on promotion committees. This, combined with the review backlog, is dire - especially for our early career researchers.

07.03.2026 05:45 👍 61 🔁 23 💬 3 📌 0

Really excellent work that was presented beautifully!

07.03.2026 05:52 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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Very proud of our undergrads Caroline Wong and Elnor Bashir who presented their research at the 67th Annual Drosophila Research Conference in Chicago! 🧪🪰
#Dros26
#scicomm
@umassboston.bsky.social

07.03.2026 04:05 👍 33 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 1

We made a highly blue-light resistant red-fluorescent genetically encoded calcium sensor GECI) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

BluePrint™ 🗺️ below:

04.03.2026 21:25 👍 15 🔁 8 💬 1 📌 1
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all set for chicago fly meeting #Dros26! umm, why are instruments set up on stage?! find out at 9pm! 🪰

@slewzeus.bsky.social @burgesslab.bsky.social @benoitbruneau.bsky.social @chrmosimann.bsky.social @docdellaire.bsky.social @fish4walking.bsky.social @daphsci.bsky.social @thelovelylab.bsky.social

05.03.2026 00:30 👍 21 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
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DO NOT MISS the opening session of #DROS26 this evening - beginning at 7pm.

You are going to be in for a treat listening to @lucksmith.bsky.social and Tara Finnegan perform "The fly song"

#Drosophila

04.03.2026 22:32 👍 23 🔁 5 💬 4 📌 0

My paper on how the fruit fly foregut uses a modified cell cycle to respond to tissue damage and cell loss is now published :)

www.nature.com/articles/s41... #proventriculus #drosophila

03.03.2026 02:48 👍 42 🔁 11 💬 4 📌 1
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Aspartate availability drives differential engagement of the malate-aspartate shuttle Brunner et al. report that malate-aspartate shuttle engagement is cell-state dependent and can be modulated by the availability of the amino acid aspartate. In differentiated cells, malate-aspartate s...

A big chunk of my postdoctoral work on cell-state dependent metabolism is now out at @cp-molcell.bsky.social: www.cell.com/molecular-ce... 1/

26.02.2026 17:27 👍 28 🔁 15 💬 2 📌 3
ShineGAL4 FLP-out clones

ShineGAL4 FLP-out clones

#Drosophila calling. Delighted to share our new collection of ShineGAL4 drivers for CNS, FB, muscles, enterocytes, oenocytes and MTs made by @vgirard.bsky.social, @sebsorge.bsky.social and colleagues @crick.ac.uk. All at Bloomington @bdsc.bsky.social

@dev-journal.bsky.social
tinyurl.com/4jpw9jd6

25.02.2026 16:03 👍 43 🔁 23 💬 1 📌 2
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White House stalls release of approved US science budgets The US Congress rejected sweeping cuts to science agencies. But the NIH, the NSF and NASA have had their spending slowed.

White House stalls release of approved US science budgets: The administration has not yet released funding Congress allocated to multiple research agencies, so they cannot provide it to funded entities/people - including NIH and NASA. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

27.02.2026 20:32 👍 127 🔁 78 💬 7 📌 13

Going to level with y’all

Been (somewhat successful) at writing NSF grants for 15 or so years and have served on many NSF panels

I have no clue how to get an NSF grant funded right now. Absolutely no clue

27.02.2026 13:31 👍 45 🔁 21 💬 5 📌 2
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White House stalls release of approved US science budgets The US Congress rejected sweeping cuts to science agencies. But the NIH, the NSF and NASA have had their spending slowed.

Congress rejected massive cuts to US science budgets for 2026, but much of the money still isn’t flowing to researchers.

The culprit? The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is quietly slow-walking the release of funds. 🧵👇

27.02.2026 16:06 👍 1055 🔁 711 💬 20 📌 75

Notch-driven fate asymmetry dictates hair cell behavior via a fate-specific kinase https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02.25.708020v1

27.02.2026 04:30 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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New preprint @biorxiv-devbio.bsky.social by Harshath Amal and colleagues from our lab @uni-muenster.de shows how a BMP #morphogen gradient is translated into graded junctional permeability by tuning adhesion and actomyosin contractility in #Drosophila
See tinyurl.com/yhbwd9xh
@sfb1348.bsky.social

18.02.2026 08:43 👍 80 🔁 29 💬 4 📌 1

Huang, Y., Xiang, Z., Xiang, Y., Pan, H., He, M., ...., Bellen, H. J., Wang, H., Bian, S., Mao, X. (2025). Biallelic MED16 variants disrupt neural development and lead to an intellectual disability syndrome www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

18.02.2026 01:45 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 1
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🚨 New Paper from UP NExT (Univ. Pitt NeuralEngineering Cross-Translation): We discovered that microglia the brain’s immune cells, aren't just a "cleanup crew". During brain stimulation, they act as hidden neural modulators, actively monitoring and contacting neurons to help manage circuit stability.

16.02.2026 23:21 👍 31 🔁 10 💬 1 📌 0

Now in its final form published in @devbiol.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

16.02.2026 23:50 👍 28 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0

I'm delighted to present TWO new preprints from my lab, led by @mczanellati.bsky.social and @sherryhsu.bsky.social, about how #organelles remodel throughout #NeuronalDifferentiation. Check out the threads about their papers below:

16.02.2026 22:41 👍 19 🔁 7 💬 2 📌 0

Are you a Drosophila researcher & member of @genetics-gsa.bsky.social (at any level of training)?

Please vote in the Flyboard elections (we have an amazing slate of candidates) before Feb 20, 2026. Please check your email or go to this website to vote: genetics-gsa.org/2026-fly-boa...

Pl repost.

13.02.2026 19:26 👍 33 🔁 28 💬 1 📌 1

Hello fly folks! If you are a postdoc or junior faculty attending the @genetics-gsa.bsky.social #Dros26 #flymeeting in Chicago, and interested in helping judge trainee posters, please comment or DM me!

Topic: Stem Cells/Regeneration/Tissue Injury

Please RT
@flybase.bsky.social @bdsc.bsky.social

12.02.2026 12:52 👍 8 🔁 8 💬 0 📌 2
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The diverse forms and roles of the neuronal endoplasmic reticulum - Nature Reviews Neuroscience The dynamic and versatile architecture of the neuronal endoplasmic reticulum (ER) enables it to support a wide range of functions. In this Review, Carvalhais, Kole and Kuijpers describe the mechanisms...

The diverse forms and roles of the #neuronal #endoplasmic-reticulum
doi.org/10.1038/s415...

12.02.2026 17:51 👍 9 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 1

Our take on a really interesting new study by the Franz lab at UCL, a version of epithelial polarity where you would not expect it! Read our Spotlight and the original paper!

11.02.2026 17:54 👍 39 🔁 20 💬 1 📌 1

Excited to share our work on epithelial multilayering - identifying why stem cell stay in the basal layer and how and why differentiating cells move up. Great collab with @manningresearch.bsky.social and Niessen labs! Check out preprint and great summary below www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

10.02.2026 06:14 👍 84 🔁 37 💬 2 📌 1

❤️ hang in there friend. I believe in you!

10.02.2026 21:04 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting

Registration is OPEN for the 2026 Santa Cruz Meeting on Developmental Biology!!! Join us!

scdb2026.sites.ucsc.edu

10.02.2026 20:05 👍 14 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 0
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Injury-induced electrochemical coupling triggers organ growth Organ repair and growth rely on coupling tissue-wide membrane depolarization with intracellular proliferative signaling.

New paper alert!🤩Super proud that our story led by superstar postdocs @liujinghui.bsky.social and @nerlielisa.bsky.social is finally out! We found how electrical signals are key for promoting organ regenerative growth!!! A thread 🧵https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aec0687

05.02.2026 09:33 👍 119 🔁 32 💬 6 📌 4
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Precise control of transcription condensates across S phase balances linker histone expression with DNA replication, ensuring genome stability Marmolejo et al. uncover transcription condensate dynamics at histone locus bodies across the cell cycle. These dynamics are governed by cell cycle (DDK and CDK1/2) and checkpoint (ATR-CHK1) kinases t...

I am excited to share the first paper from the Saldivar lab! A special thank you to all who contributed.

Precise control of transcription condensates across S phase balances linker histone expression with DNA replication, ensuring genome stability: Molecular Cell www.cell.com/molecular-ce...

04.02.2026 16:06 👍 34 🔁 16 💬 0 📌 1