Developmental Biology

Welcome to Developmental Biology

We are seeking an enthusiastic and ambitious scientist to strengthen our research and teaching activities. As an Assistant Professor position in Developmental Biology you will be given the opportunity to set up your own line of research and will participate in teaching at the Bachelor’s and Master’s level. Click here for details.

We are home to four research groups that share a mission to decipher biological principles in the context of animal development and tissue homeostasis. We also aim to train the next generation of developmental biologists through inspiring teaching at the level of bachelor, master, and PhD education in the biology department and Utrecht Life Sciences community. Learn more about our research or teaching through the links in the menu, or continue scrolling to read the latest news from our division.

News from our division

eLife paper
publication

Intermediate filaments and organismal dysfunctions

Our collaborative manuscript with Florian Geisler and the group of Rudolph Leube has just been published in eLife. Congratulations all! Read the paper here.

ENW-M for Saskia
grants

ENW-M grant awarded

Saskia Suijkerbuijk received an Open Competition grant from the Dutch Research Council to investigate how cellular fitness is communicated in intestinal organoids.

stem cell and organoid lab
grand opening

Opening Stem cell & Organoid lab

Agathe Chaigne and Saskia Suijkerbuijk officially opened our brand new "Stem cells and Organoid" room! We are looking forward to loads of awesome experiments and happy culturing.

Axl and Lotte
new colleagues

New additions to the team

A very special welcome to our newest team additions: the mexican salamanders Axl and Lotte!

mIAA7 paper image
grants

MSCA Doctoral Network awarded

Exciting news: a Marie Curie Doctoral Network grant was awarded for the project SurfEx - Epithelial Exchange Surfaces: From organizing principles to ex vivo disease models of the gatekeepers of the body.

new member pictures
new colleagues

New labmembers

Five new members have joined our groups since the last website update! Welcome to Christian, Joren, Mohamed, Stefanos and Gwen.

mIAA7 paper image
publication

Improved degron for auxin-mediated protein degradation in C. elegans

In a collaborative effort with the Boxem, Ward, and Ruijtenberg labs, Jorian Sepers shows that the mIAA7 degron greatly improves auxin-mediated protein degradation in C. elegans. Plasmids to generate CRISPR repair templates are available from Addgene.

Read the paper here
ENW-M grant Image
grants

Two ENW-M grants awarded

Suzan Ruijtenberg and Mike Boxem both received an Open Competition grant from the Dutch Research Council for the single molecule visualization of translation dynamics and to investigate how epithelial cells organize themselves along an internal molecular compass. Congratulations both!

PRC2 paper image
publication

MES-3 is C. elegans SUZ12

Sensitive similarity searches and structure prediction unearthed that MES-3 is a highly divergent ortholog of the canonical PRC2 component SUZ12.

Read the paper here
new PhD student
new colleague

New Suijkerbuijk lab member

A warm welcome to Merel van Luyk as a new PhD student in the Suijkerbuijk group! We are happy you joined and wish you great success in your PhD.

MAGU-2 paper image
publication

C. elegans Crumbs complex composition

Congratulations to Victoria Garcia on her paper describing the composition of the C. elegans Crumbs complex!

Read the paper here
nrfl-1 paper image
publication

Redundant control of lumen morphogenesis in C. elegans

Congratulations Jorian on the first paper in 2022! We show that ERM-1 phosphorylation and binding to NRFL-1 NHERF1/EBP50 redundantly control intestinal morphology.

Read the paper here