Seminars

Yun Xia presents macrophage–kidney assembloids that address missing immune and vascular components in stem-cell organoids. Directed differentiation, self-organization, genetic perturbation, xenotransplantation and single-cell analysis reveal immune–epithelial interactions. Macrophages from the same parental cells acquire resident phenotypes; diabetic and polycystic kidney models show context-dependent effects on inflammation, epithelial injury and disease progression. Minoru Takasato addresses kidney organoids’ missing urinary outflow by generating bladder tissue from human pluripotent cells. Stepwise differentiation passes through endoderm, hindgut and cloaca; FGF4 posteriorization and growth-factor screening promote urothelial identity. The resulting sacs contain stratified urothelial cell types, stretch and form a barrier, supporting developmental, disease and future therapeutic studies. Online via Zoom. Tuesday 13 October, 11:00–12:30 SGT (Asia/Singapore). Both talks share this session; individual start times are unspecified. Register through the organizer page. Professional, trainee or student status in stem cells, regenerative medicine or an adjacent field is required; organizer approval and recording restrictions apply.

Nicolas Mathevon examines the evolution of vocal communication through an analysis of songs from more than 3,000 passerine species. The study organizes their acoustic diversity into eight basic motifs and relates motif use to social organization, morphology, mating systems and sound transmission. Tropical forest conditions favor simpler signals such as flat whistles that travel effectively through dense habitat. In temperate regions, dense populations, short breeding seasons and stronger sexual selection favor complex signals such as rapid trills, despite their greater degradation during transmission. The resulting global pattern reflects a changing balance between environmental constraints and selection for complex communication. Online on 30 September 2026, 17:00–18:00 CEST (Europe/Paris; UTC+2), with an optional 15-minute discussion afterward. Open worldwide through Zoom. Use the join information on the organizer's page; its optional registration form subscribes attendees to seminar updates. Organized by LINGUAE's Animal Linguistics Seminar, with Emmanuel Chemla, Lucie Ravaux and Philippe Schlenker. Online via Zoom; public joining instructions on the organizer’s seminar page.

Mariana Wolfner presents research on the molecular changes in eggs, sperm, and females that coordinate successful reproduction, drawing on genetic and physiological studies of fertilization. This NIH Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series event is offered in person and through NIH VideoCast.

MIT Biology Colloquium Series talk by David Bilder (University of California, Berkeley), hosted by Yukiko Yamashita, on invertebrate oncology and the ancient evolutionary origins of tumor-host interactions.

This English-language webinar examines advances in organoid research, production, and drug discovery. Hideya Sakaguchi covers the developmental-biology origins of neural organoid research and its potential for drug discovery, followed by a keynote from Thomas Mitchell of The Organoid Company and a live question session.

The Nature versus Nurture debate has generally been considered from the lens of genome versus experience dichotomy and has dominated our thinking about behavioral individuality and personality traits. In contrast, the role of nonheritable noise during brain development in behavioral variation is understudied. Using the Drosophila melanogaster visual system, I will discuss our efforts to dissect how individuality in circuit wiring emerges during development, and how that helps generate individual behavioral variation.

Cellular crosstalk is an essential process during brain development and is influenced by numerous factors, including cell morphology, adhesion, the local extracellular matrix and secreted vesicles. Inspired by mutations associated with neurodevelopmental disorders, we focus on understanding the role of extracellular mechanisms essential for the proper development of the human brain. Therefore, we combine 2D and 3D in vitro human models to better understand the molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in progenitor proliferation and fate, migration and maturation of excitatory and inhibitory neurons during human brain development and tackle the causes of neurodevelopmental disorders.

David Reich examines how sequencing DNA from ancient human remains has changed the reconstruction of population history. Genetic evidence from past cultures can reveal relationships and movements that are difficult to infer from living populations alone, sometimes challenging interpretations based on archaeology, language and written history. The lecture explores what these discoveries imply for understanding shared and complex human ancestries, and how knowledge of the past could inform the study of human health. A discussion with Carl Zimmer connects the research to the interpretation and communication of evidence about human history. The programme extends the paleogenomic research associated with the 2022 medicine prize through recent work on ancient and modern human DNA.

Brain organization and function is a complex topic. We are good at establishing correlates of perception and behavior across forebrain circuits, as well as manipulating activity in these circuits to affect behavior. However, we still lack good models for the large-scale organization and function of the forebrain. What are the contributions of the cortex, basal ganglia, and thalamus to behavior? In addressing these questions, we often ascribe function to each area as if it were an independent processing unit. However, we know from the anatomy that the cortex, basal ganglia, and thalamus, are massively interconnected in a large network. One way to generate insight into these questions is to consider the evolution and development of forebrain systems. In this talk, I will discuss the developmental and evolutionary (comparative anatomy) data on the thalamus, and how it fits within forebrain networks. I will address questions including, when did the thalamus appear in evolution, how is the thalamus organized across the vertebrate lineage, and how can the change in the organization of forebrain networks affect behavioral repertoires.

We have entered a golden age of artificial intelligence research, driven mainly by the advances in the artificial neural networks over the last several decades. Applications of these techniques—to machine vision, speech recognition, autonomous vehicles, natural language, and many other domains—are coming so quickly that many observers predict that the long-elusive goal of “Artificial General Intelligence” (AGI) is within our grasp. However, we still cannot build a machine capable of building a nest, stalking prey, or loading a dishwasher. I will describe how evolution may have shaped the algorithms that the brain is using to solve some of these challenging problems. Presented in the van Vreeswijk Theoretical Neuroscience Seminar series (formerly WWTNS) on 2025-05-21. Recording duration: 00:44:20.

Anne Ferguson-Smith examines the layer of epigenetic information that influences how the DNA sequence is used. Research on this layer has changed understanding of genome function, responses to the environment and possible inheritance beyond DNA sequence alone. The lecture considers how epigenetics affects genes and contributes to modern medicine, while asking which widely held claims are supported by evidence and which deserve renewed scrutiny.

The neocortex is considered to be the seat of higher cognitive functions in humans. During its evolution, most notably in humans, the neocortex has undergone considerable expansion, which is reflected by an increase in the number of neurons. Neocortical neurons are generated during development by neural stem and progenitor cells. Epigenetic mechanisms play a pivotal role in orchestrating the behaviour of stem cells during development. We are interested in the mechanisms that regulate gene expression in neural stem cells, which have implications for our understanding of neocortex development and evolution, neural stem cell regulation and neurodevelopmental disorders.

Pluripotent cells, including embryonic stem (ES) and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, are used to investigate the genetic and epigenetic underpinnings of human diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, autism, and cancer. Mechanisms of somatic cell reprogramming to an embryonic pluripotent state are explored, utilizing patient-specific pluripotent cells to model and analyze neurodegenerative diseases.

Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun recount how studies of developmental timing in the nematode C. elegans revealed a new mechanism for regulating genes. The lectures follow the genetic analysis of lin-4 and lin-14, the discovery that a regulatory gene could produce a short non-coding RNA, and the connection between that RNA and complementary sequences in a target messenger RNA. They then examine how the discovery of additional microRNAs, including conserved regulators, changed a seemingly specialised worm finding into a widespread principle of gene regulation. The programme explains how small RNAs influence protein production after transcription and how experiments in a model organism exposed a regulatory system important across multicellular life.

Recent research on the neural crest has revealed the multipotency and plasticity of nerve-associated Schwann cell precursors, which can differentiate into diverse cell types, including parasympathetic neurons, neuroendocrine cells, and mesenchymal stem cells. These findings challenge the traditional view of peripheral nerves, highlighting their role as niches for migratory progenitor cells that contribute to tissue formation and regeneration.

Embryos issue instructions to their cells in the form of patterns of signaling activity. Within these patterns, the distribution of signaling in time and space directs the fate of embryonic cells. Tools to perturb developmental signaling with high resolution in space and time can help reveal how these patterns are decoded to make appropriate fate decisions. In this talk, I will present new optogenetic reagents and an experimental pipeline for creating designer Nodal signaling patterns in live zebrafish embryos. Our improved optoNodal reagents eliminate dark activity and improve response kinetics, without sacrificing dynamic range. We adapted an ultra-widefield microscopy platform for parallel light patterning in up to 36 embryos and demonstrated precise spatial control over Nodal signaling activity and downstream gene expression. Using this system, we demonstrate that patterned Nodal activation can initiate specification and internalization movements of endodermal precursors. Further, we used patterned illumination to generate synthetic signaling patterns in Nodal signaling mutants, rescuing several characteristic developmental defects. This study establishes an experimental toolkit for systematic exploration of Nodal signaling patterns in live embryos.

Keynote Address to British Association of Cognitive Neuroscience, London, 10th September 2024