Dr. Ranny Passos Ribeiro just won a $15K seed grant from WashU's Center for Regenerative Medicine. CRM organized a fun pitch event where the 5 post-doc finalists presented a 5-min pitch each. Ranny rose to top 2 and won a seed grant for her Highlander project! Congratulations Dr. Ribeiro, you area rock star!
Tiny titans: fantastic worms and their powerful regenerative abilities
Check out this great The Node article by post-doc Ranny about syllid regeneration!
A case for broadening our view of mechanism in developmental biology
Mansi Srivastava, Swathi Arur, and Duygu wrote this opinion piece in Development, questioning the term “mechanism” in biology research (specifically dev bio) and calling people to broaden their perspective on mechanistic studies. We hope this article creates a healthy conversation that can result in being more open to diverse ways we approach research.
Abstract: Developmental biologists can perform studies that describe a phenomenon (descriptive work) and/or explain how the phenomenon works (mechanistic work). There is a prevalent perception that molecular/genetic explanations achieved via perturbations of gene function are the primary means of advancing mechanistic knowledge. We believe this to be a limited perspective, one that does not effectively represent the breadth of work in our field. We surveyed a representative and diverse group of colleagues to share their views on what it takes to infer mechanism. Here, we briefly examine the factors that have shaped the dominant view of mechanism, summarize responses to the survey, present our views, and suggest a path forward that embraces a broad outlook on the diversity of studies that advance knowledge in our field.
We are now a Platinum certified green lab at WashU!
WashU has a Green Labs program that aims to encourage labs across all WashU campuses to be champions of sustainability.
Our lab manager Faith Stemmler worked as our Green Labs liaison, and as of January 2025, with a score of 90%, the Özpolat lab has achieved PLATINUM certification.
Welcome new undergrads! Lucy and Zeynep
We have new undergrads! Lucy, a WashU 1st year student, joined the lab early in the fall. Zeynep, an exchange student from Türkiye, will be joining us in early 2025. Welcome both!
Cellular mechanisms of annelid regeneration - New paper!
We have a new publication in Nature Communications, a companion paper to our Pristina leidyi work published earlier this year! This was a part of Duygu’s postdoctoral work when she was back in Guillaume Balavoine’s lab in Paris. It is a great collaborative effort by several labs (Raible, Balavonie, Ruta) that culminated in a fantastic paper addressing some of the big questions in annelid regeneration. More here:
https://source.washu.edu/2024/11/understanding-the-mechanics-of-regeneration/
Skeet by the Raible Lab here: https://bsky.app/profile/tessmarraiblelabs.bsky.social/post/3lb7oy7fsnc2g
Tweet by the Balavoine Lab here: https://twitter.com/BalavoineLab/status/1858472829970256001
It's a worm's world: regeneration and regrowth in the Özpolat Lab
Article by Maddy Frank.
Inside a corner lab in the basement of Busch, thousands of worms lay in wait.
The windowless room stays at a cool 18 degrees Celsius. Small plastic containers (think the ones you might have put some craft supplies in as a kid) line the front wall, each a contained saltwater habitat where juvenile worms hide in tubes of their own creation.
It feels almost Marvel movie-esque—a multitude of worlds stacked on top of one another, where only a chosen few can see the full picture.
October Conferences
Duygu is giving a keynote talk at the Aquatic Models for Human Disease conference in San Antonio, TX.
Duygu and Ranny will present posters at the Germ Cells meeting in Cold Spring Harbor, NY.
Duygu and Ranny will give invited talks at the Stowers Developmental Cell Biology meeting.
Platynereis dumerilii sex differentiation - New preprint!
Dr. Ranny Passos Ribeiro’s first manuscript of her work in the lab has been posted as a preprint. You can read more about it in this tweetorial.
Platynereis dumerilii germ cell regeneration - New Publication!
We have a new publication in Developmental Biology!
This is the hard work of Bria Metzger , who was a post-bac research assistant in our lab, now a graduate student at University of Washington in Seattle.
Here is a Twitter thread about this work.
And we will be on Developmental Biology’s cover with this photo taken by Ryan Null!
We will be at Euro-Evo-Devo in Finland
Exciting times, Duygu is one of the organizers of the Platynereis Satellite Meeting.
Ranny, Duygu, Ryan are giving talks at the satellite meeting.
Ranny is giving a talk at the Evo Devo main meeting. Duygu and Ryan have posters.
Come say hi if you’ll be there!
Welcome our new undergrads Ina, Alina, Solana, Adebimbola
We have several new undergrads who joined the lab this summer! Welcome all!
Welcome new undergrads and goodbye Lisa!
We send the undergrad Lisa Cheung who graduated this year off to her new adventures.
And we welcome 4 new undergrads: Adebimbola Adedeji, Alina Krawczynski, Ina Jaegy, and Solana Cariello. Welcome to the team!
Pristina single cell atlas is now published in Nature Communications
Almost a year later since my post about the preprint, this paper is now published! Again, a tweetorial from Jordi is here. AND a great press release written by Talia Ogliore is here.
Jasmine gets BIOSURF Fellowship
Undergrad researcher Jasmine Sun got the BioSURF summer research fellowship for 2024, which is a wonderful opportunity for undergrads at WashU!
Congratulations Jasmine. We are so excited to see what you will find with you Pristina experiments.
Welcome new undergrads Jasmine and Lisa
We have two undergraduate students joining us for research! Lisa is a senior, and Jasmine is a junior. Welcome both!
Goodbye Bria
Research assistant Bria Metzger has been accepted to the Molecular & Cellular Biology Program at University of Washington (Seattle) with a prestigious ARCS fellowship. https://www.arcsfoundation.org
We are so sad to see her leave but so excited for her new adventure. Bria, we know you’ll be amazing wherever you go!
Welcome (back) Julianna!
Julianna joined the lab as our first graduate student! We are so happy to have you back and so glad you picked our lab to continue your graduate school journey!
An Interview with the postdoc Sterling "Blake" Martin
Blake was recently featured in the WashU postdoc society’s rapid fire section. Check out the great interview with him, and find out about the ENABLE outreach project he leads.
Pristina single cell atlas
We have a new pre-print out, which is the result of a wonderful collaboration with Jordi Solana’s lab.
It is the first adult single cell atlas of an annelid, one of our favorite annelids, Pristina leidyi Smith, 1896 bioRxiv
Here is Jordi’s tweetorial about the preprint, and here are some details from me.
This was basically one of those collaborations where we were better than sum of our parts, and we loved working on this together! Jordi writes about it here, and I am forever grateful I got to work with him and his team on this project.
