Stem cell differentiation involves passing through a reversible "licensing" (aka "specification") step, which we don't understand well. Why does this exist? @RGarciaTejera may have an explanation, from his modelling work predicting how the stem cell pool is impacted.
Stem cells often get licensed for differentiation and yet remain capable of fully regaining stem cell function. What is the role of licensing in homeostasis and regeneration? Read our latest preprint with @LinusSchumacher, @ramon_grima and Marc Amoyel:
biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
New lab preprint! Very excited to share this work, led by Ruoxu Wang. We study how stem cell fate is controlled post-transcriptionally and find a new regulator of translation initiation:
biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
So we hypothesise that the phosphorylation of eIF3d is a way to strengthen the eIF3-eIF4F interaction. Indeed, work by Mykola in the @TelemanLab shows that CK2 inhibition weakens the interaction between eIF3d and eIF4F.
Therefore, we suggest that CK2 activity in stem cells maintains eIF4F-dependent translation through eIF3d phosphorylation. This leads to a selective translation programme, that changes upon loss of niche signals.
Announcing our new scholarship scheme! 👏
The UCL Research Excellence Scholarships (RES) is offering up to 40 scholarships to exceptional applicants from any country to pursue MPhil and PhDs at UCL!
Applications close on Friday 12 Jan - apply now!👇
bit.ly/46Rmc4U
First Postdoc paper, first 🦓🐟 paper, first journal cover! 🥳
🎶On the fourth day of Christmas, Dev Cell gave to me: An improved Erk biosensor that detects oscillatory Erk dynamics driven by mitotic erasure during early development🎶
cell.com/developmenta...
👀What's that? Flies 🪰 on the cover of @Dev_Cell ? (Fish 🐟 too) Congrats @WilcocksonScott on getting the cover, and yet another reason to plug Scott's work! Check out the stocks in @flystocks!
cell.com/issue/S1534-5807(22…
ALT https://www.cell.com/issue/S1534-5807(22)X0024-5#fullCover
The Rihel lab is recruiting! If you are interested in coming to central London to study the interplay between brain asymmetry, sleep, and autism genetics in the zebrafish, apply here: ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/search…
🚨Looking for a PhD studying stem cells at the interface of computational 🖥️ and experimental biology 🪰🧪? We have just the thing! 👉Apply here: shorturl.at/cdu15
@DSainzdelamaza will talk on Saturday afternoon in the stem cells and regeneration session on how the soma provides metabolic support to germ cells.
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Ben and @Vaishali_Tw have a poster #P371 in physiology and metabolism, and Ruoxu is presenting poster #P78 on his phd work looking at translation control in stem cells.
We'd love your feedback on all these projects!
Want to study ERK dynamics in real time? There's an improved tool to do just that!
@WilcocksonScott and @devsiglab's paper is out! We made the fly version of Scott's new construct. Read about it here, and get the fly stocks @flystocks (#95284-8)!
authors.elsevier.com/sd/arti…