Michael Ramírez Sierra from Sokolowski group at Center for Multiscale Modelling in Life Sciences and Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies gave a talk on the role of stochasticity in cell fate specification in the early mouse embryo. The talk ignited discussion on spatial, temporal, and signalling factors that affect patterning precision of the developing mouse embryo.

As a continuation to the Brain Awareness Week, Joanna ran neuroscience workshops at Downside School, UK which she graduated from in 2020. Pupils aged 13 and 14 got a chance to become neuroscientists for a day through designing their own verbal memory tests and exploring the flow of different ions during an action potential. In addition, Joanna also gave a talk to high school students about her experience in studying Neuroscience and being involved in various science-related projects.

Over the weekend Joanna presented a review poster entitled SARS-CoV-2 on the Clock. The Interplays Between Circadian Rhytmicity and Viral Infections on the Aspects of Neuroscience conference in Warsaw. She explained how circadian clock proteins may vary the susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection throughout the day, and how rhythms in activity of immune cells might become perturbed upon getting infected. She summarised chronobiology-related clinical measures such as timing of the vaccinations, and time-dependent administration of antiviral medications.

Today at 12:00, room D-2-43, Helder will give a seminar on properties of Turing patterns. In the talk Helder will present analytical framework to study robustness of Turing patterns emerging in systems with two and more interacting chemical species. Everyone is welcome to join!

Our research article on stability of pattern formation in systems with dynamic source regions appeared last week in Physical Review Letters, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.098402. The work is based on novel analytical framework developed by Maciej Majka. We showed that gene expression patterns can form stable domains with well-defined overlap region, yet without external feedback these domains can still shift. Thanks to analytical description we were able to provide stability conditions for all possible two-gene regulatory network motifs. This work has possible implications for fruit fly pattern specification, limb formation and spinal cord development.

We have opening for two postdocs. The project goal is to understand how biophysical factors affect patterning precision in developing tissues. Details can be found at: https://zagorskigroup.com/open-positions/. I encourage to contact me in advance. We wait for your applications till 8 February 2023!

Tomasz hacked on the human brain’s diffusion MRI connectome in the first Brainhack held in Krakow between 21-23 October. It was a great opportunity to approach a new type of problem, explore a sizeable dataset with a variety of network analysis techniques and also to bring together the computational neuroscience community in Krakow!

Today we hold a second mtg in a series of discussion panels on non-scientific aspects of doing science. Together with Kasia Dziedzic-Kocurek we will moderate the discussion on how to keep work-life balance in academia and outside of it. We meet in Konfitura restaurant nearby campus at 17:30. The event poster has the list of invited panel attendees and further details.

The poster by Maciej Majka on stability of gene expression patterns presented at international conference Diffusion Fundamentals IX received an award. In justification, the organizers highlighted that the creative application of physics research methods to problems of biological nature was highly appreciated.

This week our group participates in the 35th Marian Smoluchowski Symposium and on Wednesday we switch to Diffusion Fundamentals. On both Maciej is presenting his research on stability of gene expression domains in developing tissues. It is great to meet in person!