#morphogens
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epimechfc.bsky.social
In his seminal 1952 theoretical paper, Alan Turing proposed that partial differential equations, representing molecules (“morphogens”) that react with one another and diffuse through space, can encode spontaneous periodic pattern formation.
doi.org/10.1098/rstb...
September 27, 2026 at 11:26 AM
erichall.bsky.social
Cells use proteins like morphogens to talk to each other in order to build and maintain 3D tissue structures. But how do these morphogens reach distant cells when they are all packed together? We think long #cytonemes play a big role in shaping how cells talk to one another for growth.
March 6, 2026 at 6:55 PM
sebioldev.bsky.social
#SEBD board members @isabelalmudi.bsky.social and @trayon.bsky.social were this week at #BSDB2026 @bsdb.bsky.social meeting “Molecules to Morphogens” at Warwick, presenting their latest results
March 27, 2026 at 6:14 PM
nicolettapetridou.bsky.social
Here our latest work on how morphogens trigger tissue phase transitions to tune their own length-scales and time-scales - An exciting collaboration with @zhvas.bsky.social @dianakhorom.bsky.social Bernat Corominas-Murtra and heroic experiments by the incredible @cami-autorino.bsky.social @embl.org
cami-autorino.bsky.social Camilla Autorino @cami-autorino.bsky.social · Jun 11
🔔 Proud to share the preprint of my PhD work in the Petridou group @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social @embl.org ✨

“A closed feedback between tissue phase transitions and morphogen gradients drives patterning dynamics” 🐟 🔁 📶

🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

#devbio #biophysics

🧵⤵️
June 11, 2025 at 5:24 PM
yosoyden.bsky.social
Very proud of my students, who did an amazing review on how morphogens regulate tracheal development in Drosophila!
We also talk about the tissue that produces these morphogens, the epidermis, and we propose it acts as an 'organizer' for tracheal development (1/2)
February 1, 2025 at 1:42 AM
pookleblinky.bsky.social
One example of morphogens is the melanocytes on cats. All their melanin-producing cells start out on their backs, and ooze away. Cats have white feet when the ink runs out before it reaches the feetsies.
July 20, 2024 at 3:35 PM
jamesbriscoe.bsky.social
Honoured and overwhelmed to receive the 2026 Waddington Medal. Science is a team effort, and I've been fortunate to work alongside exceptional people asking hard questions. Thank you to the BSDB and to everyone who has been part of the journey.

bsdb.org/2026/03/24/2...
2026 Waddington Medal Winner - James Briscoe - BSDB - British Society for Developmental Biology
We are very pleased to announce that this year’s Waddington medal winner is James Briscoe. His fundamental discoveries have helped shape our understanding of of how morphogens work, and he has played ...
bsdb.org
March 25, 2026 at 7:27 AM
hardmaru.bsky.social
2/ Emergent Biological Morphogens:

How does a block know it is part of a chair, not a table? The network’s internal memory automatically learns to establish continuous gradients across the structure. This beautifully mirrors how biological morphogens give positional info to developing cells.
July 13, 2026 at 11:38 AM
cedricboeckx.bsky.social
New work from the Treutlein lab & @graycamplab.bsky.social, examining neural organoid response to morphogens 🧪🧠🧫🧬

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Systematic scRNA-seq screens profile neural organoid response to morphogens - Nature Methods
This Resource provides a detailed atlas of morphogen-induced responses in human neural organoids.
www.nature.com
December 18, 2025 at 6:32 PM
graycamplab.bsky.social
Systematic scRNA-seq screens profile neural organoid response to morphogens. Collab. with Treutlein Lab! @natmethods.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Systematic scRNA-seq screens profile neural organoid response to morphogens - Nature Methods
This Resource provides a detailed atlas of morphogen-induced responses in human neural organoids.
nature.com
December 17, 2025 at 12:50 AM
bsdb.bsky.social
Huge congratulations to James Briscoe @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social for receiving the 2026 BSDB Waddington Medal, recognising an extraordinary career of discovery, mentorship, and leadership in developmental biology.

bsdb.org/2026/03/24/2...
2026 Waddington Medal Winner - James Briscoe - BSDB - British Society for Developmental Biology
We are very pleased to announce that this year’s Waddington medal winner is James Briscoe. His fundamental discoveries have helped shape our understanding of of how morphogens work, and he has played ...
bsdb.org
March 24, 2026 at 7:47 PM
nazbukina.bsky.social
‪Happy to contribute to the Research Briefing featuring our latest study of human neural organoid patterning using morphogens.

@fatimasnc.bsky.social TreutleinLab & @graycamplab.bsky.social

@bsse.ethz.ch & IHB
December 20, 2025 at 4:02 PM
c0nc0rdance.bsky.social
In his 1952 paper "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis", Turing applied cryptographic methods to the patterns shown in the natural world.

"Morphogens" refer to chemical signals in early development that signal cells to follow certain trajectories.

"Bone morphogen proteins" BMPs, for example...
THE CHEMICAL BASIS OF MOKPHOGENESIS BY A. M. TURING, F.R.S. University qf Manchester (Received 9 November 195 1-Revised 15 March 1952) It is suggested that a system of chemical substances, called morphogens, reacting together and diffusing through a tissue, is adequate to account for the main phenomena of morphogenesis. Such a system, although it may originally be quite homogeneous, may later develop a pattern or structure due to an instability of the homogeneous equilibrium, which is triggered off by random disturbances. Such reaction-diffusion systems are considered in some detail in the case of an isolated ring of cells, a mathematically convenient, though biolo:~irall, unusual system. The investigation is chiefly concerned with the onset of instability. It is faund that there are six essentially different forms which this may take. In the most interesting form stationary waves appear on the ring. It is suggested that this might account, for instance, for the tentacle patterns on Hydra and for whorled leaves. A system of reactions and diffusion on a sphere is also considered. Such a system appears to account for gastrulation. Another reaction system in two dimensions gives rise to patterns reminiscent of dappling. It is also suggested that stationary waves in two dimensions could account for the phenomena of phyllotaxis. The purpose of this paper is to discuss a possible mechanism by which the genes of a zygote may determine the anatomical structure of the resulting organism. The theory does not make any new hypotheses; it merely suggests that certain well-known physical laws are sufficient to account for many of the facts. The full understanding of the paper requires a good knowledge of mathematics, some biology, and some elementary chemistry. Since readers cannot be expected to be experts in all of these subjects, a number of elementary facts are explained, which can be found in text-books, but whose omission would make the paper difficult reading.
December 4, 2025 at 2:47 PM
natcellbio.nature.com
☀️Our June issue is out!
Cover: mechanical polarization

👉Perspective: #RNA in #aging
👉Review: #ExtracellularVesicles
🔬 #hematopoiesis #epigenetics #mechanobiology #morphogens #ferroptosis #LipidDroplets #CellMigration #melanocytes #embryos #CancerStemCells & more!

www.nature.com/ncb/volumes/...
June 19, 2026 at 8:59 AM
zenahadjivasiliou.bsky.social
Our latest @crick.ac.uk @ucllifesciences.bsky.social @ucl-ipls.bsky.social fresh @currentbiology.bsky.social 💥. How can morphogens specify cell fate at single cell precision? A little help from Notch, ERK and glia can go a long way! A collab with the wonderful Vil Fernandes 🪰📈
ucllifesciences.bsky.social UCL Faculty of Life Sciences @ucllifesciences.bsky.social · Jul 13
How do cells build complex tissues? 🧬 New research from UCL shows how morphogens and other signalling systems collaborate to guide individual cell identities, revealing how tissues create precise patterns during development.

Read more: www.ucl.ac.uk/life-science...
How cells build complex tissues one decision at a time.
Scientists discover how morphogens and other signalling systems collaborate to guide individual cell identities, revealing how tissues create precise patterns during development.
www.ucl.ac.uk
July 13, 2026 at 1:53 PM
schierlab.bsky.social
1980s: Genetic saturation screens for developmental mutants; Zebrafish as a model system; Embryonic stem cells; Positional cloning; RNA in situ hybridization; HOX complexes, homeobox and their conservation; Parental Imprinting; Signaling pathways; Morphogens;
February 4, 2025 at 6:12 PM
annikabarber.bsky.social
Working your pets into the lecture content is the ✨best✨pedagogy. Today’s lecture was on morphogens and body axis patterning.
Pictures of a pink axolotl. Head on photo labels dorsal and ventral sides. Overhead photo shoes anterior and posterior. The slide says “Meet Enheduanna (Hedy)”
April 14, 2025 at 10:56 PM
pookleblinky.bsky.social
The reason it's symmetrical is the same reason your face is, why you have two eyes and two nostrils, etc:

Diffusion of Wnt morphogens from the center

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wnt_sig...
Wnt signaling pathway - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
July 20, 2024 at 3:33 PM
rorylcooper.bsky.social
Check out our new research in @royalsocietypublishing.org's Open Biology! We experimentally induce a transition from chemical to mechanical patterning in the chicken embryo 🐣🔬 @lanevol.bsky.social 🧪

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...
Exacerbated sonic hedgehog signalling promotes a transition from chemical pre-patterning of chicken reticulate scales to mechanical skin folding | Open Biology
Many examples of self-organized embryonic patterning can be attributed to chemically mediated systems comprising interacting morphogens. However, mechanical patterning also contributes to the emergenc...
royalsocietypublishing.org
April 16, 2025 at 10:30 AM
zenahadjivasiliou.bsky.social
Do tissue material properties impact morphogen transport? Yes! And morphogens know it. Thanks to @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social who got us involved and to Bernat Corominas-Murtra, and kudos to @cami-autorino.bsky.social @dianakhorom.bsky.social and all the authors! 🧵 below if you are curious 👇
cami-autorino.bsky.social Camilla Autorino @cami-autorino.bsky.social · Jun 11
🔔 Proud to share the preprint of my PhD work in the Petridou group @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social @embl.org ✨

“A closed feedback between tissue phase transitions and morphogen gradients drives patterning dynamics” 🐟 🔁 📶

🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

#devbio #biophysics

🧵⤵️
June 12, 2025 at 4:23 PM
jamesbriscoe.bsky.social
I was interviewed recently by @stemcellpodcast.com

I witter on about morphogens, notochord, @dev-journal.bsky.social & how biology is becoming a data science

Thanks @stemcellpodcast.com for talking to me

stemcellpodcast.com/ep-299-spina...
Ep. 299: "Spinal Cord Development" Featuring Dr. James Briscoe - The Stem Cell Podcast
Dr. James Briscoe is a Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute and Editor-In-Chief of Development. His lab uses an interdisciplinary approach, including mice, chicks, and other models, to study de...
stemcellpodcast.com
July 9, 2025 at 8:00 AM
billreagan16.bsky.social
1/2
Morphogens. According to Alan Turing, morphogens are “chemical mechanisms for biological pattern formation.” I mention this to introduce the idea of patterns in biology, and how to this day, patterns are essential to life, not only to the formation of life,
December 5, 2024 at 11:17 PM
jamesbriscoe.bsky.social
New work on dynamics of morphogen signaling:

Cells decode BMP gradient via temporal integration of signaling level, not instantaneous thresholds. While GRN gates response to provide additional spatial input

Morphogen signalling dynamics + GRN for tissue patterning

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Rapid transcriptional response to a dynamic morphogen by time integration
During development, cells must interpret extracellular signals with speed and accuracy. While morphogen gradients pattern tissues, how cells respond to dynamic morphogens remains unclear. Here, we inv...
www.biorxiv.org
June 10, 2025 at 8:07 AM
jcellsci.bsky.social
Aryeh will be handling papers on stem cells, signalling dynamics, patterning, morphogens, self-organisation, and modelling. Check out our interview to learn more about Aryeh’s research and the papers he would like to see in JCS: journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
Aryeh Warmflash
January 27, 2025 at 1:01 PM
jamesbriscoe.bsky.social
Looking for an Open Access review on Morphogens & tissue development? Look no further

Covers:
-Mechanisms shaping morphogen profiles in time & space

-Downstream signaling cascades & gene regulatory networks

-Current challenges & questions

#AnnualReviews
www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10....
www.annualreviews.org
October 19, 2023 at 1:10 PM