James Briscoe
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jamesbriscoe.bsky.social
James Briscoe
@jamesbriscoe.bsky.social
Developmental Biologist working at the Francis Crick Institute. Neural tube, morphogens, and gene regulatory networks. Editor-in-chief, Development.

London · briscoelab.org
Pinned
Our latest: *Hierarchical lineage architecture of human and avian spinal cord revealed by single-cell genomic barcoding*

For a summary & the digested highlights see thread🧵 from @giulia-boezio.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
ESFS is available as open-source packages for both CPU and GPU
github.com/aradley/ESFS

All credit to Arthur Radley who led the project, supported by Giulia Boezio, Cameron Shand, & Ruben Perez-Carrasco
GitHub - aradley/ESFS: ESFS is an Entropy Sorting based feature selection package primarily developed for feature selection of single cell RNA sequencing datasets.
ESFS is an Entropy Sorting based feature selection package primarily developed for feature selection of single cell RNA sequencing datasets. - aradley/ESFS
github.com
February 3, 2026 at 6:44 PM
4. Neural tube development: ESFS disentangled three overlapping regulatory programmes (spatial, temporal, neurogenesis) and identified superior marker genes
February 3, 2026 at 6:44 PM
3. Glioblastoma tumour spatial data (15 heterogeneous samples): ESFS identified global, shared & tumour specific expression programmes in a single workflow, no manual sample-by-sample annotation needed
February 3, 2026 at 6:44 PM
2. Colon spatial transcriptomics: ESFS resolved Serosa–LP–IEC stratification throughout the entire proximal-distal axis and uncovered gene expression gradients that consensus NMF analysis had missed
February 3, 2026 at 6:44 PM
We tested ESFS in 4 challenging datasets

1. Early human embryo development from 8 independent studies. Without any batch integration, ESFS revealed coherent developmental trajectories & identified previously uncharacterised trophectoderm subpopulations
February 3, 2026 at 6:44 PM
The framework comprises three algorithms

ES-GSS separates technical noise from biological signals

ES-CCF identifies cell groupings that maximise correlation with individual genes

ES-FMG identifies minimal marker gene sets capturing distinct expression programmes without redundancy
February 3, 2026 at 6:44 PM
ESFS uses information-theoretic measures to identify multivariate gene relationships directly in gene expression space, not in latent space

By reformulating conditional entropy as a sorting problem, it achieves tractable feature correlation quantification with built-in significance testing
February 3, 2026 at 6:44 PM
The problem: HVG selection shows poor reproducibility across implementations and introduces systematic biases that affect downstream analyses

Yet while other analytical steps get sophisticated new tools, feature selection has been largely neglected
February 3, 2026 at 6:44 PM
Single-cell RNA-seq has revolutionised biology, but little attention has been paid to the first step in the analysis: feature selection

We've seen huge advances in clustering & integration, but highly variable genes (HVG) is still the method used to start most analyses
February 3, 2026 at 6:44 PM
Our new paper: Entropy Sorting Feature Selection (ESFS)

A computational framework for gene selection from single cell data that extracts biological signals in noisy data while avoiding artefacts from conventional dimensionality reduction

A thread
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org
February 3, 2026 at 6:44 PM
Reposted by James Briscoe
I watched much of Ian Chapman's (Head of @ukri.org) appearance this morning at @ukparliament.parliament.uk Science, Innovation and Technology Committee..

A few points and new information that bioscientists may find interesting...

A 🧵
February 3, 2026 at 1:57 PM
Reposted by James Briscoe
We're hiring! JCS is looking for a Reviews Editor to join the team. This is a fantastic opportunity for someone who loves cell biology and wants to stay connected with the field (and be part of an organisation that believes in supporting the community).
www.biologists.com/about-us/wor...
Work for us
Working for us We’re always looking for talented and motivated people to work as part of our close-knit team. Roles range from editorial to production, marketing to event co-ordination, HR to accounts...
www.biologists.com
January 28, 2026 at 5:08 PM
Our latest: A gene selection method for single-cell RNA-seq that identifies developmental & spatial patterns missed by other analysis pipelines

ESFS: A Noise-Resilient Framework for Feature Selection and Marker Gene Discovery in Single-Cell Transcriptomics | bioRxiv www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
ESFS: A Noise-Resilient Framework for Feature Selection and Marker Gene Discovery in Single-Cell Transcriptomics
Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) has transformed our ability to resolve cellular heterogeneity, but extracting meaningful signals remains challenging due to technical noise, batch effects, and the limitations of current feature selection methods. We present Entropy Sorting Feature Selection (ESFS), a modular, user-friendly framework that captures multivariate gene expression relationships without imputation or denoising via latent spaces. Across diverse datasets, ESFS improves interpretability and reveals biology missed by standard workflows: identifying coherent developmental programs in eight independent human embryo datasets without batch integration; resolving spatial gene expression in mouse colon obscured by conventional analyses; distinguishing shared and tumour-specific microenvironments in glioblastoma; and disambiguating spatial, temporal, and neurogenic programs in the developing mouse neural tube. By operating in gene expression space, ESFS produces interpretable, biologically meaningful outputs while reducing artefacts introduced by feature extraction. These results position ESFS as a powerful means to uncover relevant molecular signatures in noisy, high-dimensional transcriptomics data. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Cancer Research UK, CC001051 Medical Research Council, https://ror.org/03x94j517, CC001051 Wellcome Trust, CC001051 Wellcome Trust, 220379/D/20/Z European Molecular Biology Organization, 792-2021 UK Research and Innovation, EP/X031225/1
www.biorxiv.org
January 28, 2026 at 5:59 AM
Looking forward to
the St. Anna CCRI Symposium on Cell Fate in Cancer and Development tomorrow

ccri.at/st-anna-ccri...
January 22, 2026 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by James Briscoe
Thrilled to share that I’ve been awarded a FIS-3 Advanced Grant (ERC-inspired) to study the evolution of neurogenic GRNs.
Recruiting soon: 4 postdocs + 3 PhDs
Press release in Italian — to decolonise scientific language 😄
magazine.unibo.it/it/articoli/...
Email me if interested in joining the lab
Un viaggio all’origine dei sistemi nervosi
Il nuovo progetto GRNevo, finanziato con un grant FIS-3 Advanced da 1,9 milioni di euro, studierà come si formano i neuroni durante lo sviluppo in specie animali molto distanti tra loro: dal moscerino...
magazine.unibo.it
January 13, 2026 at 11:14 AM
Reposted by James Briscoe
Feb 1 deadline approaching for our @kitp-ucsb.bsky.social QBio summer course on Physical Principles of Morphogenesis in Plants and Animals. @streichan.bsky.social
@maurazimmermann.bsky.social @maizel-lab.org @yusuke-mori.bsky.social @akankshi.bsky.social @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social
January 13, 2026 at 11:36 PM
There's still time to apply to be a 2026 @dev-journal.bsky.social Pathway to Independence fellow

For those about to apply for their first independent academic position, the programme offers

- mentoring
- leadership training
- profile rising
- networking

journals.biologists.com/dev/pages/pi...
Pathway to Independence programme | Development | The Company of Biologists
Pathway to Independence programme | Development | The Company of Biologists Development's Pathway to Independence programme Launched in 2022, Development’s Pathway Independence programm...
journals.biologists.com
January 13, 2026 at 5:29 PM
Reposted by James Briscoe
We're happy to highlight two very exciting preprints from @idoiaeu.bsky.social and @matosches.bsky.social about the evolution of Cajal-Retzius cells. Find our perspective in @dev-journal.bsky.social here:
doi.org/10.1242/dev....
In preprints: the deep evolutionary roots of Cajal-Retzius cells
Vertebrates show a striking diversity of brain size and morphology. Mammals, in particular, have an especially large cerebral cortex, presenting with a characteristic six-layered structure that is bel...
doi.org
January 9, 2026 at 2:24 PM
Reposted by James Briscoe
The hard truth about how hard it is to publish in Development

Editor-in-Chief @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social leads our team of Academic Editors in addressing the perception that Development is ‘too hard to publish in’ by discussing the journal's review process.

doi.org/10.1242/dev....
January 12, 2026 at 10:36 AM
Reposted by James Briscoe
We had a great experience publishing in Development (doi.org/10.1242/dev....). High-quality reviews, quick turnaround, and our editor (Jim Wells) was very helpful and provided feedback about the reviewers comments.
January 7, 2026 at 4:42 AM
Reposted by James Briscoe
We believe that, as our future leaders in biology, it is vital to provide #ECRs with the right support during the early stages of your academic career. We offer a number of practical ways to help you meet the unique needs and challenges you may encounter: www.biologists.com/about-us/ear...
Supporting early-career researchers
On these pages we highlight the range of resources that we offer to early-career researchers.
www.biologists.com
December 19, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Delighted & honoured to have given the Jean Brachet Memorial Lecture for the International Society for Differentiation

Thanks to the Indian SDB for hosting and to Sally Dunwoodie for the generous introduction.
December 18, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Reposted by James Briscoe
And here is the PDF of the 4th course @college-de-france.fr. You will find the justification and presentation of geometric representation of cell decisions, a parsimonious mathematical model for signalling and cell state transitions

tinyurl.com/yc7u296j
December 16, 2025 at 9:57 AM
Good to see the peer reviewed version of this published

A chemo-optogenetic system for spatiotemporal control of gene expression

We use it to:

- Reconstruct SHH mediated neural tube patterning in vitro

- Measure extracellular half-life of Shh

www.cell.com/developmenta...
Investigating morphogen and patterning dynamics with optogenetic control of morphogen production
Benzinger et al. develop a chemo-optogenetic system for precise spatiotemporal control of morphogen production in vitro. Using light-controlled Sonic hedgehog expression, they recapitulate neural tube...
www.cell.com
December 16, 2025 at 1:45 AM