Topic: development

Investigate development and organisation of the visual system using single-cell and spatial molecular profiling. The postdoctoral work combines multi-omics, viral engineering and computational modelling. The priority review date has passed; later applications are considered if the vacancy remains unfilled, through the final date shown.

The SICB annual meeting examines how organisms function and evolve by integrating morphology, development, physiology, behaviour and ecology. Symposia connect neural sensing to movement; test developmental and evolutionary responses to climate; investigate regeneration of bodies, brains and behaviour; and combine extinct and living organisms to reconstruct biological change. Further sessions examine dormancy, compliant structures, host–microbiome feedback, mutualisms, shark development, polyploidy, crustacean life cycles and animal aesthetics. Neuromechanics sessions compare how muscle–tendon

This EMBO Practical Course trains early-career researchers to integrate experimental and computational tools for studying development. Practical modules cover live and optogenetic imaging in teleosts, single-cell transcriptomics, CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing, multiplex hybridization chain reaction for spatial gene-expression analysis, and morphometric analysis in African cichlids. Lectures and data-analysis sessions connect the methods to cell fate, lineage relationships, cellular dynamics and morphogenesis. Participants with foundational developmental-biology experience are encouraged to bring

A tenured associate professorship supports research across neuroscience, including neural plasticity, development, genetics and aging. Experimental, computational, cellular and non-model-organism approaches are welcome. The appointee develops interdisciplinary collaborations across biology and neuroscience, teaches and mentors students, and contributes university service. Application review begins 1 December 2026 and continues until filled.

Gašper Tkačik explores whether the language of information in biology can become a predictive scientific theory. The lecture connects information transfer from DNA to proteins, positional signals that guide cell fate during development, neural information processing, and the storage and inheritance of information in evolving genomes. It brings physics, information theory and quantitative biology together to examine these processes across biological scales. Tkačik is Professor at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria. Shinya Kuroda provides commentary; Arisa Ema moderates. Online via

Graduate students and postdoctoral researchers can seek up to GBP 3,000 for a research visit to another laboratory. Apply to the participating journal that best matches the work: Development, Journal of Cell Science or Journal of Experimental Biology. The next deadline is 23 October 2026 for travel after 7 December 2026. This recurring fellowship supports research collaboration; it is not a training-course bursary.

UC Berkeley Molecular & Cell Biology seminar (Division of Genetics, Genomics & Development) by Barak Cohen of Washington University in Saint Louis on massively parallel experimental studies of enhancer function.

Steven Bernstein examines how international norms and practices interact to produce change and continuity in global governance. Contemporary descriptions of a rupture in the international order may exaggerate some changes while overlooking slower developments over preceding decades. The lecture develops four scenarios of change, using examples from ecological governance, development and the rules-based international system to assess the strengths and limitations of prevailing conceptual frameworks.

Dan Nicholson re-examines Erwin Schrödinger's What Is Life? and its influence on molecular biology and the metaphor of organisms as machines. The conversation considers deterministic physics, genetic coding, development and negentropy, then asks how that intellectual history continues to shape explanations in neuroscience and artificial intelligence.

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 ma

Tony Zador considers what artificial intelligence can learn from animal brains. The discussion emphasizes evolution and development as routes to data efficiency, the coordination of multiple behavioural objectives, the possible energy benefits of spikes, and the historical and current relationship between neuroscience research and AI engineering.

Recent insights from auditory neuroscience provide a new perspective on how the brain encodes speech. Using these recent insights, I will provide an overview of key factors underpinning individual differences in children’s development of language and phonology, providing a context for exploring atypical reading development (dyslexia). Children with dyslexia are relatively insensitive to acoustic cues related to speech rhythm patterns. This lack of rhythmic sensitivity is related to the atypical neural encoding of rhythm patterns in speech by the brain. I will describe our recent data from infa

Little is known about the critical metabolic changes that neural cells have to undergo during development and how temporary shifts in this program can influence brain circuitries and behavior. Motivated by the identification of autism-associated mutations in SLC7A5, a transporter for metabolically essential large neutral amino acids (LNAAs), we utilized metabolomic profiling to investigate the metabolic states of the cerebral cortex across various developmental stages. Our findings reveal significant metabolic restructuring occurring in the forebrain throughout development, with specific group

Cellular crosstalk is an essential process during brain development and it is influenced by numerous factors, including the morphology of the cells, their adhesion molecules, the local extracellular matrix and the secreted vesicles. Inspired by mutations associated with neurodevelopmental disorders, we focus on understanding the role of extracellular mechanisms essential for the correct development of the human brain. Hence, we combine the in vivo mouse model and the in vitro human-derived neurons, cerebral organoids, and dorso-ventral assembloids in order to better comprehend the molecular an

Vision and visual cognition is experience-dependent with likely multiple sensitive periods, but we know very little about statistics of visual experience at the scale of everyday life and how they might change with development. By traditional assumptions, the world at the massive scale of daily life presents pretty much the same visual statistics to all perceivers. I will present an overview our work on ego-centric vision showing that this is not the case. The momentary image received at the eye is spatially selective, dependent on the location, posture and behavior of the perceiver. If a p

In cognitive development, learning more than the input provides is a central challenge. This challenge is especially evident in learning the meaning of numbers. Integers – and the quantities they denote – are potentially infinite, as are the fractional values between every integer. Yet children’s experiences of numbers are necessarily finite. Analogy is a powerful learning mechanism for children to learn novel, abstract concepts from only limited input. However, retrieving proper analogy requires cognitive supports. In this talk, I seek to propose and examine number lines as a mathematical sch

To generate brain circuits that are both flexible and stable requires the coordination of powerful developmental mechanisms acting at different scales, including activity-dependent synaptic plasticity and changes in single neuron properties. The brain prepares to efficiently compute information and reliably generate behavior during early development without any prior sensory experience but through patterned spontaneous activity. After the onset of sensory experience, ongoing activity continues to modify sensory circuits, and plays an important functional role in the mature brain. Using quantit

Bioluminescence, which is rare on land, is extremely common in the deep sea, being found in 80% of the animals living between 200 and 1000 m. These animals rely on bioluminescence for communication, feeding, and/or defense, so the generation and detection of light is essential to their survival. Our present knowledge of this phenomenon has been limited due to the difficulty in bringing up live deep-sea animals to the surface, and the lack of proper techniques needed to study this complex system. However, new genomic techniques are now available, and a team with extensive experience in deep-

Tinbergen encouraged ethologists to address animal behaviour by answering four questions, covering physiology, adaptation, phylogeny, and development. This broad approach has implications for neuroscience and psychology, yet, questions about phylogeny are rarely considered in these fields. Here I describe how phylogeny can shed light on our understanding of brain structure and function. Further, I show that we now have or are developing the data and analytical methods necessary to study the natural history of the human mind.

Three intimately related dimensions of the mammalian genome—linear DNA sequence, gene transcription, and 3D genome architecture—are crucial for the development of nervous systems. Changes in the linear genome (e.g., de novo mutations), transcriptome, and 3D genome structure lead to debilitating neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism and schizophrenia. However, current technologies and data are severely limited: (1) 3D genome structures of single brain cells have not been solved; (2) little is known about the dynamics of single-cell transcriptome and 3D genome after birth; (3) true de nov

Abstract concepts are a powerful tool to store information efficiently and to make wide-ranging predictions in new situations based on sparse data. Whereas looking-time studies point towards an early emergence of this ability in human infancy, other paradigms like the relational match to sample task often show a failure to detect abstract concepts like same and different until the late preschool years. Similarly, non-human animals have difficulties solving those tasks and often succeed only after long training regimes. Given the huge influence of small task modifications, there is an ongoing d

Normative development in adolescence indicates that the prefrontal cortex is still under development thereby unable to exert efficient top-down inhibitory control on subcortical regions such as the basolateral amygdala and the nucleus accumbens. This imbalance in the developmental trajectory between cortical and subcortical regions is implicated in expression of the prototypical impulsive, compulsive, reward seeking and risk-taking adolescent behavior. Here we demonstrate that a chronic mild unpredictable stress procedure during adolescence in male Wistar rats arrests the normal behavioral mat

Doris Tsao, Tony Zador and Blake Richards discuss the interface between neuroscience and AI around the NAISys conference. They consider evolution, innate structure, development and learning, the kinds of understanding sought in the two fields, and opportunities for neuroscience to inform artificial intelligent systems.

Neuroscientists have many questions about connectomes that revolve around the ability to compare networks. For example, comparing connectomes could help explain how neural wiring is related to individual differences, genetics, disease, development, or learning. One such question is that of bilateral symmetry: are the left and right sides of a connectome the same? Here, we investigate the bilateral symmetry of a recently presented connectome of an insect brain, the Drosophila larva. We approach this question from the perspective of two-sample testing for networks. First, we show how this questi