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! ;-)
FMI Annual Meeting 2022
From 20th to 22nd of September the FMI had its Annual Meeting in the beautiful Grindelwald. We had a packed program with selected talks (including a talk from Conny!), poster sessions and an afternoon with hikes! At the evening of the 21st we also had our Gala Dinner where we listened to an inspiring talk from Roger Schaeli and of course the FMI follies.
FMI Annual Meeting 2022. Picture by Sjoerd van Eden.
Gustavo's paper out in Nature Communications!
We congratulate Gustavo and the rest of the team to have their paper out in Nature Communications today! If you are interested in expanding the information-gain of your lightsheet movies, please have a look here!
Laura joined the Lab!
Today we welcomed Laura as a new postdoctoral fellow in the lab! During her PhD, Laura focused on lipid cell biology and investigated how lipids can influence cellular states. She will now use intestinal organoids to get a deeper insight into the involvement of lipid metabolism in cell fate determination with a focus on the stem cell niche formation. We look forward to work together with you in the upcoming years!
Prisca announced as an EMBO member
The EMBO community annually nominates and elects life scientists to join their ranks. By doing so, outstanding achievements in their respective fields are honoured. This year, Prisca was awarded an EMBO membership along with 66 other scientists from 22 countries to join more than 1800 leading scientists around the globe. Congratulations Prisca and all other elected members!
Prisca is awarded the EMBO Gold Medal!
On the 24th of June Prisca was awarded the EMBO Gold Medal, in recognition for all the exceptional contributions to understanding the formation of intestinal organoids from stem cells and for developing new experimental and analytical tools!
Congratulations Prisca!
CZI Napari Accelerator Grant
Liberali and Pelkmans lab have recently been awarded the CZI Napari Accelerator Grant for working on developing plugin solutions for the Napari Community! The main goal is to address solutions that allow large imaging datasets from high content screening experiments to be visualized in Napari in an easy and robust way.
Liberali Lab in the Novartis Live Magazine
Liberali lab is featured on the Novartis Live Magazine! The issue covers collaborative science, highlighting selected research groups from Novartis and the FMI.
Credit: Novartis/Laurids Jensen
The Liberali Lab at the BaCell3D Conference
This year marks the first iteration of the BaCell3D conference. The conference focuses on how organoid and organ-on-a-chip technologies can be used to recapitulate development or regeneration, and how these model systems can be used for disease modelling, drug discovery, and personalised medicine. We look forward to exciting talks (including keynotes from Nicolas Rivron and Kara McKinley), refreshing discussions, and for many of us the first in-person meeting after the long break!
Welcome Joel
Today Joel joined the lab as a bioimage analysis expert. Joel did his PhD at the University of Zürich studying cardiac differentiation and developing 3D image analysis pipelines. In the lab he will work on building Python-based 3D image analysis and visualisation workflows to study high content images of organoids and other 3D structures. We look forward to work together with you!
Welcome Nadim!
Today we welcome Nadim, a new postdoctoral fellow in the lab. Nadim did his Ph.D. at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg, Germany focusing on single-cell biology of the liver in the context of health, disease, and regeneration. In the Liberali lab he aims to investigate the emergence and plasticity of colorectal cancer in human intestinal organoids. Enjoy your stay in the lab!
Annual group retreat in Interlaken, Switzerland!
In September of this year, the group was finally able to go out again together for some fun days in a cozy hut near Interlaken. The rain could not stop us from kayaking on our first afternoon in the area, and luckily the weather cleared up for a small hike towards the Faulhorn close to Grindelwald on the next day. Undoubtedly, the highlight was a cooking-competition on our final evening together.
Thank you to everyone involved!
Review on collective cell behaviour in organoids
Are you interested in learning more on how individual units orchestrate collective behaviours like force-generation, oscillations, or migration? Qiutan wrote a review-article on this topic, which was published today in “Current Opinion in Cell Biology”. You can find the full article here.
Lab dinner (finally, in-person!)
With the eased Covid restrictions, we were finally able to have a in-person social event all together as a lab. We enjoyed some home-made food, karaoke, and beautiful balcony views at Prisca’s place and also celebrated Francis’ retirement.
