At VPD-HLRI, Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Papworth Road, Trumpington, Cambridge CB2 0BB, on Thursday 23th January, 1 pm.

Prof. David Sancho from CNIC- Fundación Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares

David will be sharing some of his latest unpublished results, focusing mainly on how mitochondrial metabolism regulates myeloid cell function and a separate story on a microbial metabolite that contributes to atherosclerosis progression.

Lab Website: https://www.cnic.es/en/david-sancho-madrid

At Hodgkin Huxley Seminar Room on Wednesday 5th February 16:00

Margarida Cardoso Moreira (Head, Evolutionary Developmental Biology Lab The Francis Crick Institute)

"The evolution of new cell types and organs: the view from the placenta"

One of the most challenging questions in evolutionary biology is understanding how new types of cells, tissues, and organs first arise during evolution. We address this fundamental question by studying the placenta, an organ that evolved once among mammals but that has evolved independently more than 100 times among other vertebrate lineages. The mammalian placenta is exceptionally diverse morphologically. We have found that the placenta evolves faster across species at the molecular level than other mammalian organs. The fast evolution is driven by new expression patterns, the addition of newly evolved genes, protein adaptation, and – remarkably – the evolution of new cell types. The unparalleled level of cell-type innovation in the mammalian placenta makes it an exceptional model for studying the evolution of new cell types. While the mammalian placenta originated only once, placentas have evolved independently at least nine times among small live-bearing fishes of the Poeciliidae family. The placentas of Poeciliids offer a unique opportunity to investigate how new organs, made of different cells and tissues, emerge during evolution. We are combining functional genomics and imaging technologies to study four independent origins of a placenta. These approaches are allowing us to determine the identity of the cells that make up the placentas in the different species and their developmental origins. These lines of research demonstrate the exceptional model that the placenta provides for understanding how new biological structures (cells, tissues, organs) arise during evolution.

At Palazzo Franchetti, from 29 September to 3 October 2025, Venice

Alma Dal Co was a promising young scientist working in interdisciplinary fields between physics and biology, who had just established herself with a new research group at the University of Lausanne, and tragically died in a diving accident in November 2022 at the age of just 34. In her memory, a Foundation was created to support the research and study activities of young researchers and musicians; Alma was in fact also an excellent pianist who graduated from the Venice Conservatory. https://almadalcofondazione.org/ 

This year, the School will cover a variety of biological systems displaying collective behaviour, from cellular movement and microbial coordination, to the self-organisation of tissues and aggregates, the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of social insects, and the behaviour of human societies.  

The deadline for applying is 28th February 2025.

Links: https://almadalcoschool.github.io 

https://almadalcoschool.github.io/POSTER.pdf

Cambridge Infectious Diseases Annual Symposium