Jeff Rasmussen
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jraslab.bsky.social
Jeff Rasmussen
@jraslab.bsky.social
We study skin-neuron interactions in #zebrafish. Located in beautiful #Seattle (UW Biology). Join us! #devbio #organogenesis #regeneration

Lab website: https://jraslab.org
Reposted by Jeff Rasmussen
Dendritic atoh1a+ cells serve as Merkel cell precursors during skin development and regeneration

Read this #LifelongDevSI #OA Research Article by Evan Craig, Jeremy Rasmussen @jraslab.bsky.social and colleagues at @uwbiology.bsky.social:

journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...
October 21, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Reposted by Jeff Rasmussen
🔎 New from the @jraslab.bsky.social at UW!

They used #Langerhans cells within the adult #zebrafish epidermis as a model to investigate roles of microtubules in immune cell tissue surveillance, phagocytosis, and directed migration.

🦓🐟 See it in @jcellsci.bsky.social : https://bit.ly/49fmQhf
October 22, 2025 at 10:50 PM
Congratulations to @errricpeterman.bsky.social for the second-ever journal cover from the lab!
Issue 18 is complete

Explore our ToC: journals.biologists.com/jcs/issue/13...

On the cover: macrophages (white) migrating towards a scratch wound in a zebrafish skin explant (α-catenin, magenta). From @errricpeterman.bsky.social @jraslab.bsky.social et al.
journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
October 8, 2025 at 2:58 PM
Reposted by Jeff Rasmussen
A small primer on the #NobelPrize awarded to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi today. This prize was for combining two separate fields of immunology research - genetic research on IPEX and immunology research of regulatory T cells (#Tregs), with enormous impact on biology/medicine
October 6, 2025 at 11:21 AM
Reposted by Jeff Rasmussen
cover image yeeeeeeeeehawwwww #flourescentfriday
check out our work in the most recent issue of @jcellsci.bsky.social !
October 3, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Latest paper from the lab!
👀 Check out this macrophage (labeled with a microtubule reporter in blue) avoid an epithelial obstacle (labeled with a nuclear reporter in pink) as it migrates to a wound (off screen to the left) ⬅️
Video credit: @errricpeterman.bsky.social
Eric Peterman @errricpeterman.bsky.social, Jeffrey Rasmussen @jraslab.bsky.social @uwbiology.bsky.social & colleagues discover that microtubules regulate tissue-level navigation in skin-resident macrophages.
journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
Article: journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
September 25, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Thank you @jcellsci.bsky.social for this research highlight "Microtubules help macrophages navigate the epidermal maze" as a companion to our manuscript from @errricpeterman.bsky.social !
journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
Microtubules help macrophages navigate the epidermal maze
Specialised macrophages called Langerhans cells respond rapidly to skin damage, migrating to wounds to promote tissue repair. Due to their fast migration and presence in a superficial tissue, these ce...
journals.biologists.com
September 18, 2025 at 6:12 PM
Congrats to @errricpeterman.bsky.social on leading our latest paper now published in @jcellsci.bsky.social ! Eric found multiple roles for microtubules in tissue-resident macrophage homeostasis and function -- including in helping macrophages navigate around epithelial obstacles during wound repair👇
now online! check out our work describing roles for microtubules in tissue-resident macrophages during directed cell migration. thanks to @jcellsci.bsky.social for a stress-free publication process
journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...
September 18, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Reposted by Jeff Rasmussen
My awesome Drosophila colleague Akhila Rajan at Fred Hutch (Seattle) is recruiting both a staff scientist and a postdoc to study fat–brain communication, innate immunity, mitochondrial signaling, and brain senescence. Great team, great environment. Apply here: careers-fhcrc.icims.com/jobs/30062/j...
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
Fred Hutch is dedicated to the elimination of cancer and related diseases as causes of human suffering and death.
careers-fhcrc.icims.com
September 17, 2025 at 1:05 AM
Reposted by Jeff Rasmussen
Our postdoc ad is up on the SDB website! Come to Portland and study regenerative neurogenesis in planarians and zebrafish:
www.sdbonline.org/resource?Res...
Society for Developmental Biology | Resource
www.sdbonline.org
September 5, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Reposted by Jeff Rasmussen
In a new @uwbiology.bsky.social publication, the @jraslab.bsky.social describes the discovery of a transitional cell type, dendritic #MerkelCells, that connects keratinocyte progenitors to mature touch-sensitive Merkel cells.

📰Press release: https://bit.ly/4mj1xPE
🥼Abstract: https://bit.ly/43Zd3cn
August 21, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Reposted by Jeff Rasmussen
🗞️ Fresh off the press! #MC3Memos newsletter vol 2 is here—packed w/ stories, latest advancements, & opportunities within the Merkel Cell Carcinoma (MC3) Institute.

📰 mc3institute.uw.edu/news/mc3-memos-vol-2

@fredhutch.bsky.social @uwmedicine.bsky.social
#merkelcellcarcinoma #cancerresearch
August 1, 2025 at 10:21 PM
Way to represent @uwbiology.bsky.social !
🐌💫 Snail embryos never looked so fabulous!
Tubulin (white), phospho-histone H3 (pink), and F-Actin (cyan) light up this early stage like a cytoskeletal disco ball.
Image from Clemens Cabernard & Adam von Barnau Sythoff 🪩🧬 #FluorescenceFriday
July 31, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Reposted by Jeff Rasmussen
Applications are now open for the 2026 SDB Science Communication Internship. Graduate student and postdoc members of the Society for Developmental Biology are eligible to apply. Deadline: August 15. Learn more: www.sdbonline.org/science_comm...
July 23, 2025 at 7:51 PM
👀 Latest paper from the lab now published @dev-journal.bsky.social
Dendritic atoh1a+ cells serve as Merkel cell precursors during skin development and regeneration

Read this #LifelongDevSI Research Article by Evan Craig, @jraslab.bsky.social and colleagues @uwbiology.bsky.social:
doi.org/10.1242/dev....

🎥Microvilli dynamics in zebrafish Merkel cells
July 9, 2025 at 5:48 PM
🎉 Our study identifying the direct precursors of Merkel cells is now published in @dev-journal.bsky.social Thank you to our reviewers @reviewcommons.org and collaborators for helping us improve the manuscript. Check out these cell behaviors we visualized in #zebrafish skin. doi.org/10.1242/dev....
June 26, 2025 at 4:56 PM
Reposted by Jeff Rasmussen
My latest article is up on Developmental Biology~
Learn about data that waited 15 years to be published! 👀
www.sciencedirect.com/journal/deve...
News - Developmental Biology | ScienceDirect.com by ElsevierScienceDirect
Read the latest articles of Developmental Biology at ScienceDirect.com, Elsevier’s leading platform of peer-reviewed scholarly literature
www.sciencedirect.com
June 17, 2025 at 12:10 AM
Reposted by Jeff Rasmussen
In 1975 "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Space Oddity" were on the UK top 100, and Ward, Thomson, White, and Brenner published the first reconstruction of the C. elegans sensory anatomy.

A short 50 years later, we reconstructed the same neurons and glia in the embryo:
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
June 9, 2025 at 11:11 AM
Reposted by Jeff Rasmussen
Talked to @KateZernike at @nytimes about my journey and the current moment for scientists in the U.S.

“Ardem Patapoutian’s story is not just the American dream, it is the dream of American science.”

Read the article here. No subscription required:

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/u...
The U.S. Lit a Beacon for Science. Under Trump, Scientists Fear It’s Dimming
www.nytimes.com
June 3, 2025 at 10:58 AM
Reposted by Jeff Rasmussen
Check out #SDBSciCommIntern Samantha Fernandes' samfernandes.bsky.social story on 2023 SDB Emerging Research Organisms Grant Recipient Emma Rangel-Huerta & her work establishing rice coral as a #devbio research organism. www.sdbonline.org/resource?Res...
May 7, 2025 at 10:50 PM
Reposted by Jeff Rasmussen
New preprint from the lab, led by grad student Brandon Pratt, on the encoding properties and sensorimotor function of proprioceptive limit detectors (ie, hair plates) in the fly leg.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
May 19, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Reposted by Jeff Rasmussen
Any research paper reporting results of NIH-funded research, published on/after July 1, 2025, must be immediately free to read on PubMedCentral. No more 12 month embargo grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...
NOT-OD-25-047: 2024 NIH Public Access Policy
NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: 2024 NIH Public Access Policy NOT-OD-25-047. OD
grants.nih.gov
April 30, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by Jeff Rasmussen
monday monday monday! check out our new preprint studying microtubule requirements in skin macrophages. lots of neat zebrafish imaging and tissue damage assays
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Microtubule-dependent cell polarity regulates skin-resident macrophage phagocytosis and directed cell migration
Immune cells rapidly respond to tissue damage through dynamic properties of the cytoskeleton. How microtubules control immune cell functions during injury responses remains poorly understood. Within s...
www.biorxiv.org
March 17, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Reposted by Jeff Rasmussen
timeline cleanse, enjoy some zebrafish scales/skin/immune cells and figure 1A of our upcoming preprint #fluorescencefriday
February 28, 2025 at 5:03 PM
Reposted by Jeff Rasmussen
Still time to apply for @uoregon.bsky.social Summer Program for Undergraduate Research — a paid 10-week research opportunity this summer for undergrads in the life sciences.

Details in the flyer below.

Please share.
January 21, 2025 at 5:50 PM