Lab retreat in Barcelona

From May 27-29, we spent our annual lab retreat in Barcelona. Besides enjoying the sea, Barcelona’s beautiful architecture, delicious food and impressive Sagrada Familia, we also met with the labs of Miki Ebisuya, James Sharpe and Vikas Trivedia (EMBL) to discuss tissue formation and self-organisation as well as with the lab of Xavier Trepat (IBEC) to discuss tissue mechanics. We returned with our skin lightly tanned and hour heads full of new ideas and impressions. Thank you very much to Miki, James, Vikas and Xavier for their hospitality!

First paper published

The first paper of the lab - a beautiful story about symmetry breaking and intestinal organoid development by Denise, Urs and Andrea - was published today. Check it out if you want to see how we used advanced imaging techniques and single cell genomics to unravel the mechanisms of symmetry breaking.

Bruno Speck award ceremony

Denise and Urs gave a talk on their recently by Nature accepted story on symmetry breaking in intestinal in at the annual Basel Stem Cell Network meeting where they also received the Bruno Speck award for the best paper in basic research of the Basel Stem Cell community. Congrats, well done!

Our first paper got accepted

Years of hard work and dedication payed off by the acceptance of Denise’s, Urs’ and Andrea’s paper on symmetry breaking in intestinal organoids by Nature. To celebrate this memorable moment - which also marks the first paper of the lab - we ‘decorated’ Prisca’s office and surprised her with a shower of confetti. Nobody can say that the Liberali lab does not know how to celebrate ;) Congrats to everyone who was involved in this very exciting project!

Bruno Speck Award 2019

Denise, Urs and Andrea received the Bruno Speck Award 2019 in the category ‘Basic Research’ (sponsored by the ‘Stiftung für Hämatologische Forschung’) from the Basel Stem Cell Network for their beautiful work on symmetry breaking in organoids. Congrats to the winners!

Farewell dinner for Aline

End of February, we had to say goodbye to Aline, member of the Liberali lab from the first day. In order to celebrate the time spent together, Prisca invited everyone for a dinner at her place. There, we could walk down memory lane while enjoying country-specific food that everyone brought. Aline, we wish you all the best for your future endeavours!

Marietta got the BIF travel grant

Marietta was awarded the Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds Travel Grant for her stay in Matthias Lutolf’s lab at EPFL, Lausanne. There she learned how to culture gastruloids and started a fruitful collaboration between the two labs.

We celebrate the 'Women in Science' day

With a strong female group leader as a role model, we are proud to have so many intelligent and driven women in our lab. Happy ‘Women in Science’ day!

Merry Christmas

This year, the Liberali lab again gained the victory in the FMI’s Christmas card competition with Marietta’s ‘Organoid Star’. Congrats!

The Liberali lab wishes everyone Merry Christmas, a wonderful time with your families and may all your wishes come true in 2019!

Lab Christmas party

This year’s Christmas party led us to a laser tag court where we played three games against each other and we could discover our inner warrior. This exhausting but exciting adventure was followed by our traditional Christmas market visit and a delicious Italian dinner.

Review on self-organisation

Aline’s and Prisca’s review on self-organisation was published in ‘The FEBS Journal’ today. If you are interested how a group of cells interacts and coordinates to form complex three-dimensional structures, check out this interesting review.

FMI Annual Meeting 2019

This year’s FMI Annual Meeting took us to beautiful and snowy Pontresina, Switzerland. The program was filled with exciting talks from our colleagues, including one from Denise, and the keynote speaker, Elly Tanaka from IMP, Vienna. Traditionally, we also enjoyed scenic hikes in the Swiss Mountains and a Gala dinner with the infamous follies, this year spiced up by a performance of the junior group leaders including Prisca.

Poster prize

Ilya won the poster prize at the ‘Modelling Organ Development and Disease in 3D Culture’ conference at EMBL, Heidelberg for his poster on screening intestinal organoids. Congrats!

Talk and poster prize at Basel Stem Cell Network Meeting

Basel’s experts in stem cell biology met at the Basel Stem Cell Network Meeting to discuss recent findings and hot topics in stem cell research. Denise gave a highly appreciated talk on symmetry breaking in intestinal organoids and Qiutan won the poster prize with a poster on mechanics during bud formation. Congrats!

Goodbye, Claudia!

Today, we said goodbye to Claudia who joined us twice for a 6 months internship. Coming from an organic chemistry background, she was introduced to the world of biology and organoids in our lab. We hope she won’t lose her curiosity for the life sciences and wish her all the best for her PhD studies!

Swim in the Rhine

Taking a break in the sun and swimming in the Rhine has become a yearly tradition for us in the Liberali lab. After hitting the Rhine with the famous ‘Wickelfischli’, we enjoyed our lunch in the sun.

Lab fun day

To let our muscles work instead of our brain for a change, we challenged our abilities in a climbing garden. Some of us for sure had talent and passed the lanes with flying colours. This exciting day was finished with cool, refreshing beers.

4th of July BBQ

In memory of her PostDoc time in the US, Ludivine invited us and our families to a BBQ with lots of delicious, US-themed food.

Visitors in the Liberali lab

Prisca invited a group of audience members of her TEDx Basel talk to the FMI where they were demonstrated how we can use imaging as powerful tool to study intestinal organoid biology.

Prisca rocked TEDx Basel

This year’s TEDx Basel topic was ‘Borders & Frontiers’. Prisca wowed the crowd with her talk on how organoids can help us to understand disease better and elegantly demonstrated how we can push boundaries with innovative science and thinking-out-of-the-box.