This year, we explored the charming christmas market in Basel! We enjoyed seasonal treats, warm gruhwein, and the holiday atmosphere. It was a nice way to celebrate the season :)
Christmas outing with Room escape!
For the Christmas outing, the Liberali lab went for the Room escape this year! It was a day filled with teamwork, puzzles, and plenty of laughs as everyone worked together to solve mysteries :)
Prisca got a prestigious Basel Wissenschaftpreis!!
Prisca have been granted this year’s Science Prize by the City of Basel in honor of her pioneering work on collective behaviors of developmental and regenerative systems. Every year, exceptional researchers based in Basel receive the prize, which is worth 20,000 Swiss Francs.
To celebrate Prisca’s award, the entire Liberali lab went to Rathaus! Check out the fun moment during apero :)
Check out Prisca's recent review!
Prisca and Alex wrote the amazing review for the 50th Cell Press. In this review, they explain how developmental biology field has been accelerated by emerging model systems and technological advancements in imaging, engineering, and computational biology. Congratulations!
The evolution of developmental biology through conceptual and technological revolutions: Cell
Prisca announced as Professor at ETH Zürich
Exciting news! Prisca has been officially announced as Professor of Multicellular Systems at the ETH Zürich, leading to a double affiliation with the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering (D-BSSE) of the ETH and with the Friedrich Miescher Institute (FMI). Both institutes are located in Basel, making it possible for our group to combine our work in two fantastic research environments and foster collaborations even further. We are all very excited for the new opportunities and proud of Prisca’s recognition as a leading expert in the field!
Maurice defended his PhD
Maurice successfully defended his PhD on Friday on “Dynamics and Plasticity of Stem Cells in the Regenerating Human Colonic Epithelium”. Maurice will continue his work on organoid models and high throughput experiment designs with us at the FMI in a new role - we are very happy to continue working with such a legendary [ ;-) ] colleague. Congrats, Dr. Kahnwald!
YAP-activator paper published
Together with our colleagues from Novartis, Clara and Prisca have published a novel YAP activator called NIBR-LTSi, that they extensively validated in different in vivo and in vitro model systems. This tool will be highly valuable for research on regeneration.
Check out the publication:
Namoto K, Baader C, Orsini V, Landshammer A, Breuer E, Dinh K T, Ungricht R, Pikiolek M, Laurent S, Lu B, Aebi A, Schönberger K, Vangrevelinghe E, Evrova O, Sun T, Annunziato S, Lachal J, Redmond E, Wang L, Wetzel K, Capodieci P, Turner J, Schutzius G, Unterreiner V, Trunzer M, Buschmann N, Behnke D, Machauer R, Scheufler C, Parker C N, Ferro M, Grevot A, Beyerbach A, Lu W-Y, Forbes S J, Wagner J, Bouwmeester T, Liu J, Sohal B, Sahambi S, Greenbaum L E, Lohmann F, Hoppe P, Cong F, Sailer A W, Ruffner H, Glatthar R, Humar B, Clavien P-A, Dill M T, George E, Maibaum J, Liberali P and Tchorz J S 2024 NIBR-LTSi is a selective LATS kinase inhibitor activating YAP signaling and expanding tissue stem cells in vitro and in vivo Cell Stem Cell 31 554-569.e17
New home for the Liberali Lab
The whole Friedrich Miescher Institute has found a new home!!
Friedrich Miescher Institute has moved into the Novartis campus and our new address will be Fabrikstrasse 24 (Fab 24).
Looking forward to continuing our scientific journey in a new home!
New paper published in Nature Methods
The work on our second version of the open top lightsheet microscope for live cell imaging of organoids by Franziska and Simon in cooperation with Viventis has been published in Nature Methods! With the LS2, we can now image multiple conditions with large organoids and even hydra simultaneously. Have a look at the reviewed paper:
Moos, F. et al. Open-top multisample dual-view light-sheet microscope for live imaging of large multicellular systems. Nature Methods 1–6 (2024) doi:10.1038/s41592-024-02213-w.
Prisca won International Suffrage Science Award!!
Congratulations Prisca for winning the award!
Prisca received the 2024 International Suffrage Science Award for Life Sciences. This award celebrates women in science not only for their scientific achievements but also for their ability to inspire other scientists. Its main goal is to encourage more women to become involved in and pursue scientific career.
This year, 9 awardees were chosen for the Life Sciences category. Congrats!
A perspective on experimental and theoretical approaches in mechanobiology
Biological research has long moved away from isolated wet-lab work. Current methods and hypotheses tend to be rather complex, necessitating the expertise of scientists from various different fields, like physics, computer science, or math. Conny and her collaborator, David Brückner from the IST in Austria, wrote up which considerations are important when bridging experimental and theoretical work, with a focus on mechanobiology.
Congrats on this beautiful piece!
Interested? Find the full perspective here:
Connecting theory and experiment in cell and tissue mechanics
The human colonic epithelium and its stem cell states...
Just the right timing for the festive season!
While many studies focus on biological processes in the small intestine, research in the colonic epithelium is lacking behind. To this end, Koen and Maurice worked to improve culture conditions for human colonic organoids to use them in a robust and scalable manner. Through extensive characterisation with in vivo data, they found that the switch from regeneration towards homeostasis is accompanied by a switch between two stem cell states. An initial, ASCL2+/LGR5+ fetal-like stem cell population concludes the regenerative process, while the subsequent switch to an OLFM4-high adult-like state enables efficient differentiation into all lineages. Interested? Read the full story as a preprint here:
Dynamics and plasticity of stem cells in the regenerating human colonic epithelium
Pushing live imaging with light-sheets further!
The work from Franziska and Simon has been published in BiorXiv! A great collaborative work with Viventis Microscopy, pushing the barriers of open top light-sheet microscopy towards multi-sample with large field-of view. More here:
Moos, F., Suppinger, S., de Medeiros, G., Oost, K., Boni, A., Rémy, C., Weevers, S., Tsiairis, C., Strnad, P., Liberali, P. (2023) Open top multi sample dual view light sheet microscope for live imaging of large multicellular systems. BiorXiv
Lab retreat 2023!
We had an amazing time near Ostuni, Puglia, during our lab retreat this September!
Between the sun and the beach we actively engaged on a very broad palette of topics, from pasticity, metabolism and conserved principles in biology all the way to general discrimination in science, inclusion and more. There was a great atmosphere where we celebrated diversity in science and life, had a chance to sleep in real trullos, had great food and awesome moments together!
Welcome Seoyoung!
Seoyoung has joined the Liberali Lab since beginning of September, all the way from Korea, to study cell fate decision in early embryonic development using blastoids.
Welcome!!
Welcome Marius and Elisabetta!
Today, the Liberali Lab welcomed Marius and Elisabetta. Both of them expand the “Human Organoid” team in our group. Elisabetta is a PhD student in Florence, Italy, and will join the our team for a period of 6 months as a visiting researcher. She will set up a screen in human small intestinal organoids of patients with short bowel syndrome to evaluate why the efficacy of certain drugs differ in patients with this disease. On the other hand, Marius joins as a MD-PhD student and will work on human colonic organoids to get a better understanding of how the regenerative process is altered between health and disease.
We are looking forward to work with you!
Paper out !
Our resource paper on gastruloid development is finally out!! An amazing work of current and former lab members which made this possible, huge congrats to all involved!
Below you can see a shortened version of the abstract for more information:
“Gastruloids are 3D structures generated from pluripotent stem cells recapitulating fundamental principles of embryonic pattern formation. Using single-cell genomic analysis, high throughput imaging and a phenotypic compound screening we provide a resource functionally mapping cell states and types with spatial resolution. We report an early spatial variability in pluripotency exit determining a binary response to Wnt activation. Although cells in the gastruloid-core revert to pluripotency, peripheral cells become primitive streak-like. These two populations subsequently break radial symmetry and initiate axial elongation. Finally, using a dual Wnt modulation, we improve the formation of anterior structures in the existing gastruloid model. This work provides a resource to understand how gastruloids develop and generate complex patterns in vitro.”
Suppinger, Zinner, Aizarani, Lukonin et al., Cell Stem Cell (2023)
BaCell3d 2023
BaCell3D was a great sucess! a wide range of great speakers and great interaction!
For the second year we are happy to have helped the organisation of the BaCell3D conference, hosted this year in the beautiful KHaus.
The conference focused on how organoids and organ-on-chip can recapitulate development or regeneration and how these systems can be used for personalised medicine and disease modelling.
This year we had a full house with people from all around the world. We had a series of inspiring and exciting talks (including our keynotes Hans Clevers and Melissa Little), fun chats, poster session and some fun with apero and live music.
Check out Twitter for more info and hope to see you again next year!
Lab fun day!
This year we went Curling at the Curling Center Basel! We enjoyed the unique new experience between full leg extension, resonant sweeping techniques and many falls on the ice! Afterwards we were rewarded with Glühwein at the Christmas Market!
Merry X-mas and happy new year!
Lab cleaning day
End of the year is a time of reflection, a time to look around and re-evaluate what is valuable and what needs to go. Following this spirit each end of the year we organize one lab cleaning day, where each one of us gets particular roles to fight entropy and bring the lab back to lower energy levels. Of course this also requires strong hands, the right dress code, access to higher grounds and lots of creativity! ;-)
