Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Julia Wittes @jwittes.bsky.social · Aug 27

demonstrated that the germline and somatic gonad appear to act in concert as part of a signaling relay.
This project has been so much fun to work on. Many thanks to my collaborator Grace, mentor Iva, and the worms!

Julia Wittes @jwittes.bsky.social · Aug 27

exactly insulin is acting has been a long-standing mystery.
By tissue-specifically disrupting DAF-2 (the insulin receptor) and AKT in the somatic gonad, we discovered that insulin signaling in the somatic gonad is critical for regulating the dauer entry decision. Laser ablation experiments

1

Julia Wittes @jwittes.bsky.social · Aug 27

When C. elegans worms are exposed to stressful conditions, they can put reproduction and development to adulthood on hold and arrest their development as stress resistant (and very weird/cool) dauer larvae. We have long known that insulin signaling influences the dauer entry decision, but where

1 1

Julia Wittes @jwittes.bsky.social · Aug 27

My new paper is out in Current Biology!

Insulin signaling activity in the somatic gonad controls dauer entry via the germ line in C. elegans

C. elegans dauer diapause is a facultative state of cellular and developmental quiescence that enables survival in adverse conditions. Przybyl et al. show that a canonical insulin signaling pathway ac...

www.cell.com

2 4 11

Julia Wittes @jwittes.bsky.social · Jul 1

This is such a clever idea!

2

Reposted by Julia Wittes

Meera Sundaram @meera-sundaram.bsky.social · Jun 3

Flybase is in trouble and needs emergency support. #Celegans community I know we have a friendly feud but maybe consider a donation to honor a fly colleague/mentor?

Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · Jun 3

Can forward the email I received from the Europe side. They have split two funding campaigns into a US side and a Europe side. Donations must be placed through the Cambridge-linked facility for Europe via lab PO or personal payment via the following page: www.philanthropy.cam.ac.uk/give-to-camb...

We are writing to ask your help in saving FlyBase. We have lost the majority of funding for FlyBase from the US National Institute of Health (NIH), due to the turmoil of current US politics. We had successfully renewed FlyBase grant funding for another 5 years, however the main FlyBase Grant from NIH to Harvard, with its subawards to Indiana University and Cambridge UK, has been terminated at short notice. Furthermore, the user fees that have been so generously provided by Drosophila researchers are tied to the FlyBase grant so we are not permitted to use those either. As it stands, by the end of July, 2025, there will be no future updates to FlyBase, and in the worst case scenario access to the website will also be lost.

...

There are two ways you can contribute:

Method 1. If you are able to pay with lab funds, we have attached two requests for payments, aimed at smaller and larger labs, which we hope will be acceptable for your finance administrators. If you require a different kind of form, please reply with the details that you need. Similarly, if you wish to pay a different amount we can also adjust it for you.
Please use the reference ‘Drosophila Genetic Database’ and add your name and institution to the requests.

Method 2. If you want to make a personal donation or if it is easier to pay with a credit card, we have set up the following crowdfunding website:
https://www.philanthropy.cam.ac.uk/give-to-cambridge/physiology-development-and-neuroscience/drosophila-genetic-database

1 8 13

Reposted by Julia Wittes

Rita Strack @ritastrack.bsky.social · Feb 6

"Imagine a DAPI-like stain, but for the extracellular matrix." That's basically how this work was pitched to me by Kayvon and Antonio a year or so ago. Now the final product really delivers. Read about their versatile label for ECM in living tissues here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

9 100 350