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 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.

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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 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 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

FMI Annual Meeting 2022. Picture by Sjoerd van Eden.

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!