I defended my PhD today!! I am so lucky to have had incredibly kind and generous mentors during every step of my journey in science. Thank you all so much, I wouldn’t be here without all of the love and support.

Lets go Mansi!! Sad I’m not at embryology this year but I am there in spirit!

Ever wonder where adult pluripotent stem cells such as neoblasts come from? Check out the work of Julian Kimura, Marce Bolaños, and Lorenzo Ricci out today. We identified embryonic origins of neoblasts in Hofstenia embryos. authors.elsevier.com/a/1gDLWL7PXiqi1

A big chunk of my PhD work is finally out Cell !! I want to thank Dr. Marcela Bolaños, Dr. Lorenzo Ricci, Mansi, and the Srivastava Lab Srivastava Lab, as this project was not possible without their help. cell.com/cell/fulltext/…

New study in Cell by Prof. Mansi Srivastava Srivastava Lab & Julian Kimura (PhD '22) discovers embryonic origin of adult pluripotent stem cells in acoels #stemcells bit.ly/3W4tmxQ

cell.com/cell-stem-cell… Online today in Cell Stem Cell we find regeneration-associated enhancers of #zebrafish origin (called TREEs) can be used in AAVs to localize delivery of a payload to mammalian heart attack sites. Can focus a regeneration response and improve heart function.

Work from Srivastava Lab shows that Hofstenia miamia neoblasts are heterogeneous across development and regeneration. Ryan Hulett Julian Kimura Yi-Jyun Luo @CFRiveralopez nature.com/articles/s4146…

Excited to announce I am pivoting back to academia after a year in pharma. I am starting my Postdoc at MIT in the Weissbourd lab studying nervous system regeneration, evolution, and function in Clytia!

Spread the word and mark your calendars! Cnidofest 2024 will happen August 14-17th at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA! We have kicked planning into high gear and we look forward to seeing everyone in 6 months!

Our paper providing the first comprehensive analysis of the #Hydractinia genome is out in Genome Research! Our orthology analyses have revealed that there is shared ancestry with other animals in the form of a conserved toolkit for regeneration. 👉🏼bit.ly/4dlJKTJ

I'm excited to share the preprint of my second work from Rink Lab. This time we looked into the stem cell system of my favorite catenulid flatworm, Stenostomum. Using plenty of methods we showed that it is... very different from what one would expect from a flatworm!

🎉Congratulations to Brady Weissbourd in MIT Biology on being named a Searle Scholar. With an eye on regenerative medicine, his lab will study how jellyfish manage to constantly integrate new neurons into their nervous systems picower.mit.edu/news/award-wil… #neuroscience MIT Science

pnas.org/doi/abs/10.107… Great stuff from Ryan Hulett, Srivastava Lab ,@CFRiveraLopez , and Andrew Gehrke!

Super excited to be attending #2024SDB Society for Developmental Biology this year! Come check out how I am combining systems/behavioral neuroscience with stem cell biology to investigate neural regeneration in a jellyfish model! 🪼 Monday, Poster 206, B9 “Neural Regeneration in a Jellyfish Model”

Excited to share my PhD work!🎉 By characterizing and comparing the cells at the aboral end of the planula larva in 3 cnidarian species, we identified shared molecular features and propose a model for settlement regulation in cnidarians 🪼🪸. Clytia group LBDV tinyurl.com/37z2ma2f

I’m delighted to share that I will be starting my lab University of Miami in Spring 2025! We will study cellular and developmental biology in non-bilaterian animals – cnidarians, ctenophores, placozoans, and sponges – to explore early animal evolution.

Hofstenia miamia is an emerging model species for regeneration and embryology. We present this in-depth identification and developmental profiling of Hofstenia microRNAs. ⁦Srivastava Lab⁩ ⁦Isana Veksler-Lublinsky⁩ #microRNA #Hofstenia biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

New paper out! We show that heart cockles use bundled fiber optic cables to transmit light through "skylights" in their shell for their photosynthetic algae. The skylights filter out harmful UV radiation. These coral analogues are cool critters!! w/ Sonke Johnsen Dionne Group

“No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.” - President Alan Garber hrvd.me/GarberRespond3…

If you are at #ISRB2025 this year come check out my poster about neural regeneration in a new jellyfish model! (107, Poster session 1)