Thibaut Brunet
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thibautbrunet.bsky.social
Thibaut Brunet
@thibautbrunet.bsky.social
Evolutionary cell biology / evolution of morphogenesis / animal origins / choanoflagellates @institutpasteur.bsky.social

https://research.pasteur.fr/en/team/evolutionary-cell-biology-and-evolution-of-morphogenesis/
Pinned
Latest from ours: www.cell.com/cell-reports...

This is two stories in one: a case study/cautionary tale on developing genetic tools in new organisms, and the first hint at a gene regulatory network for choanoflagellate multicellular development (which turn out to involve a Hippo/YAP/ECM loop!) A 🧵
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
Very happy to share video of 1st lecture @college-de-france.fr on Biological computation 😊. I defend the necessity to access Algorithmic & Computational levels of analysis in cell & developmental biol. proposed by David Marr in neuroscience. Logic & Function matter 🤩.
Video: tinyurl.com/55yejk5f
Qu’est-ce que l’information biologique (suite) ? (1) - Thomas Lecuit (2025-2026)
Enseignement 2025-2026 : Qu’est-ce que l’information biologique (suite) ? Cours du 20 décembre 2025 : Introduction : approche computationelle du vivant Professeur : Thomas Lecuit Chaire Dynamiques du vivant Retrouvez les enregistrements audios et vidéos du cycle : https://www.college-de-france.fr/fr/agenda/cours/qu-est-ce-que-information-biologique Tous les enseignements du Pr Thomas Lecuit : https://www.college-de-france.fr/chaire/thomas-lecuit-dynamiques-du-vivant-chaire-statutaire https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOj9pZ2YNGZ84uMY6DhPnqpL1rq5qNAVJ Le Collège de France est une institution de recherche fondamentale dans tous les domaines de la connaissance et un lieu de diffusion du « savoir en train de se faire » ouvert à tous. Les cours, séminaires, colloques sont enregistrés puis mis à disposition du public sur le site internet du Collège de France. Découvrez toutes les ressources du Collège de France : https://www.college-de-france.fr Soutenir le Collège de France : https://www.fondation-cdf.fr/faire-un-don Suivez-nous sur : Threads : https://www.threads.net/@collegedefrance Bluesky : https://bsky.app/profile/college-de-france.fr Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/College.de.France Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/collegedefrance LinkedIn : https://fr.linkedin.com/company/coll%C3%A8gedefrance
tinyurl.com
November 24, 2025 at 9:42 AM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
Nah. The answer to increasing dishonesty in science is never and will never be "create an inquisition that will hunt dishonesty, and make people prove honesty at every step".

We need to remake the incentives so rewards are for being a proper scientist and discovering new, validatable things.
November 23, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
Revised refereed preprint:
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Revision work lead by @longweibai.bsky.social

Our work reveals how the #microbiota helps buffer #malnutrition: L. plantarum sustains intestinal activity of the steroid hormone ecdysone, expanding the midgut and supporting systemic growth.
November 23, 2025 at 6:19 AM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
don't forget the @sbcf.bsky.social special symposium on #eukaryogenesis!

we have available slots for oral presentation
🔔 Save the date!
Join us on Feb 3, 2026 at the Institut Pasteur (hybrid format) for the next SBCF symposium: “The Cell Biology of Eukaryogenesis and Beyond.”

🧬 Abstract deadline extended to Nov 26 — 5 short talks will be selected!

👉 Registration & program available online: tinyurl.com/y2r9ff89
November 22, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
Three more weeks to sign up!
#CellBio community, this one is for you! Applications are open for the #LakeConference on Modeling Life from Cells to Tissues – co-hosted with Circuit Neuroscience Basel!

📆 April 20-22, 2026
📍 Seattle, USA
🔬 All career stages welcomed.

Apply to attend by 12/12: alleninstitute.org/events/aics-...
2026 Lake Conference: Modeling Life from Cells to Tissues
Join the Allen Institute for Cell Science and Circuit Neuroscience Basel in Seattle, Washington, April 20–22, 2026, for a 3 day conference, Modeling...
alleninstitute.org
November 21, 2025 at 8:18 AM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
Save the date for the next Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting next summer.
SAVE THE DATE! Stoked to organize the 2026 Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting with @rashmi-priya.bsky.social, @lowelab.bsky.social, and Shelbi Russell. Come learn about Biomedicine, Biomechanics, and the Biosphere, August 24-28, 2026. Registration dates, etc., coming soon! Please RT
November 19, 2025 at 8:55 PM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
We just released a new major version of TrackMate (v8), the cell and organelle tracking plugin of Fiji.

It ships many new features, detailed below, but that are articulated around the following:
November 20, 2025 at 11:42 AM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
Is it a flagellate? A tiny ball with tentacles? Contamination in my ciliate culture? NEW SUPERGROUP OF EUKARYOTES? Yes to all 4! Meet Solarion - just out in #Nature doi.org/10.1038/s415... Huge congrats to Marek Valt, Cepicka Lab & the star team! Very happy to be part of this project. #ProtistsOnSky
November 19, 2025 at 9:39 PM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
Super excited for this project and grateful to the John Templeton Foundation for support!
Congrats to @wcratcliff.bsky.social, who received a grant from @templetonfdn.bsky.social. The grant will enable Ratcliff to continue groundbreaking research into the origins of multicellular life. b.gatech.edu/4oPhHSh
November 19, 2025 at 4:20 PM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
You may have heard about paranoia and the paranormal, but have you heard about paraneurons?

Oliver Hobert revisits this half a century old concept and show cases how out may inform our understanding of #neuron #evolution.

www.cell.com/current-biol...
Paraneurons
Hobert revives the concept of a ‘paraneuron’ to unify a group of cells with neuron-like, yet distinct features that are found widely in animals.
www.cell.com
November 19, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
A couple of days left to submit your abstract for the upcoming EMBO/EMBL Symposium on the Molecular Basis of Symbiosis ! Great line up of speakers :)
#ProtistsOnSky #SymbioSky
🧪 Submit your abstract for #EESSymbiosis and get the chance to present your research, receive qualified feedback and help develop our understanding of the complexities of symbiotic function.

You have until 25 Nov: https://s.embl.org/ees26-03-bl

🗓️ 17 – 20 Mar 2026
📍 EMBL Heidelberg and Virtual
November 19, 2025 at 3:28 PM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
I feel this. A big part of my professional growth over the last few years has been the realization that I will not live to carry out the vast majority of my ideas. As a result, I'm much more open with sharing them than ever before.
Science is like this too 🧪
I am not aware of a single author who has a shortage of book ideas. Words, yes. Ways to make the ideas become a book, yes. But I've never met an author who doesn't have ideas just raining down all the damn time.
November 19, 2025 at 1:46 PM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
One more week to apply for this exciting symposium on collective behaviour 👇👇👇
Abstract deadline extension alert! 🚨 You now have until 25 November to submit your abstract and be one of 22 selected short talk speakers for #EESCollectivity ➡️ s.embl.org/ees26-01-bl

Explore how collective behaviours arise from fundamental principles across biological systems. 🦠🐒🧬
November 19, 2025 at 9:03 AM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
Drawing together findings from several projects over many years, we make a case that neural cell types in the Clytia larva have two embryological origins: i-cells and ectodermal.
bioRxiv 2025.11.17.688882; doi: doi.org/10.1101/2025...
November 19, 2025 at 7:43 AM
Wow! Remarkably complete story on the logic of phenotypic plasticity in a predatory protist - congrats @cellraiser.bsky.social et al!
How do cells adapt morphology to function? In a 🔥 preprint by @zjmaggiexu.bsky.social , with @dudinlab.bsky.social and @amyweeks.bsky.social , we identify a self-organizing single-cell morphology circuit that optimizes the feeding trap structure of the suctorian P. collini. 🧵 tinyurl.com/4k8nv926
November 18, 2025 at 8:52 PM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
How do cells adapt morphology to function? In a 🔥 preprint by @zjmaggiexu.bsky.social , with @dudinlab.bsky.social and @amyweeks.bsky.social , we identify a self-organizing single-cell morphology circuit that optimizes the feeding trap structure of the suctorian P. collini. 🧵 tinyurl.com/4k8nv926
November 18, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
Our paper on the role of neurons in Nematostella head regeneration is now out at @currentbiology.bsky.social Big thank you to all collaborators, it was a pleasure!

Ectopic head regeneration after nervous system ablation in a sea anemone: Current Biology www.cell.com/current-biol...
Ectopic head regeneration after nervous system ablation in a sea anemone
Via genetic ablation of neurons, Mazloumi Gavgani et al. show that the nervous system is essential for defining axial polarity during whole-body regeneration in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis.
www.cell.com
November 18, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
Out today, our take on 6-methyladenine #6mA evolution in Eukaryotes @natgenet.nature.com. We asked a simple question, is really DNA 6mA common across the eukaryotes? The answer is "yes" if you're a unicellular eukaryote 🦠, not so if you're multicellular 🐝🌱🍄. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/9
Adenine DNA methylation associated with transcriptionally permissive chromatin is widespread across eukaryotes - Nature Genetics
Long-read sequencing in 18 unicellular eukaryotes reveals that 6mA is widespread across eukaryotes and is enriched at transcriptionally permissive regions, which are also marked by H3K4me3.
www.nature.com
November 18, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
Glad to see our phoronid genome study featured on the cover of @currentbiology.bsky.social! It shows how genome structure can be used to test competing hypotheses of nested topology and how derived structural changes provide evidence for monophyly.

www.cell.com/current-biol...
November 17, 2025 at 4:25 PM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
Our work on Naegleria Myosin 2 is out!

Naegleria encodes 3 Myo2s which contract its actin network—the first evidence of contractile Myo2 outside of Amorphea.
Myo2 is actually widespread in Naegleria's relatives and correlates with fast cell crawling.

Read more: www.cell.com/current-biol...
Myosin 2 drives actin contractility in fast-crawling species outside of the amorphean lineage
Myosin 2-dependent actin contractility—the force that powers cell division and migration in animals, fungi, and other Amorphea—had been previously unknown outside this single eukaryotic group. Guest e...
www.cell.com
November 17, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
Il reste encore des places pour notre formation @ephe-psl.bsky.social à R (27 janvier au 5 février à Paris), avec une focalisation complète sur le traitement de données (pas de statistiques).

Il y a un module pour chaque niveau et chaque besoin ! 👇

#rstats #formationcontinue
Marre de passer vos journées à Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V vos données dans un tableur et devoir tout refaire à cause d'un soucis de formatage imprévu ? 😡

Suivez la formation @ephe-psl.bsky.social (27 janvier au 5 février) pour apprendre à utiliser R pour traiter vos données :👇
www.ephe.psl.eu/formations-q...
Apprentissage du logiciel R | École Pratique des Hautes Études
L’EPHE − PSL propose une formation pratique à l’utilisation du logiciel libre R pour la gestion et la manipulation des données avant l’analyse statistique (non traitée dans cette formation).Le contenu...
www.ephe.psl.eu
November 17, 2025 at 9:02 AM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
I just took a break from a busy semester and registered for #CELLBIO2025, the annual ASCB/EMBO Meeting. Philly is one of the best venues, and the science is always incredible. Join me and register today! @ascbiology.bsky.social
www.ascb.org/cellbio2025
November 16, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
Folks have been super kind regarding this manuscript

It is such a contentious topic that I wondered if letting this project go beyond the four walls of the lab was a personal/emotional mistake

But no - it wasn't

People are chill. People are nice. This community rules 🤘
bsky.app/profile/jlst...
NEW pub in @science.org 🥳

Is it sponges (panels A & B) or comb jellies (C & D) that root the animal tree of life?

For over 15 years, #phylogenomic studies have been divided.

We provide new evidence suggesting that...

🔗: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
November 15, 2025 at 10:13 PM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
Re-upping this with a Bluetorial in a shameless act of self-promotion. 1/n
Cell cycle-driven transcriptome maturation confers multilineage competence to cardiopharyngeal progenitors
Wei Wang, @lionlchristiaen.bsky.social and colleagues
www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....
November 15, 2025 at 8:15 AM
Reposted by Thibaut Brunet
Still looking for our perfect doctoral candidate as part of @evomg-dn.bsky.social - come and join us to work on the evolutionary pressures that shape gene expression and disease in the uterus!

Please RT (or is it RB? not sure how our lingo has changed!)
November 14, 2025 at 10:22 AM