Science EMBL researchers are stepping outside the lab and thinking outside the box to understand the basic principles that underlie the development and evolution of organismal characteristics.
2023
science
Science EMBL and UW researchers plus additional collaborators have constructed a complete map of fruit fly embryonic development using machine learning. This research is foundational to better understanding overall embryo development in other species, including humans.
2022
science
Science Researchers from the Furlong group at EMBL have come up with a way to observe the development of fruit-fly embryos simultaneously at the genetic and cellular levels, generating a high-resolution and integrated view of how different cell lineages form.
2022
science
Science EMBL scientists generate a high-resolution crystal structure of the Kinesin-1/aTm1 transport complex in the fruit fly.
2021
science
Picture of the week Like caterpillars turning into beautiful butterflies, fruit fly larvae have to go through metamorphosis to finish their development. However, despite the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster being one of the best studied model organisms in biology, comparatively little attention has been given to this…
2021
picture-of-the-week
Science Researchers from EMBL Heidelberg have established an automated pipeline to create mutations in genomic enhancers, letting them watch evolution unfold before their eyes.
2020
science
Picture of the week We’ve all had wounds at certain times in our lives. But they heal due to the self-repairing mechanisms in the body.
2020
picture-of-the-week
Picture of the week Not just another pretty fruit fly. This magenta and golden drosophila larva is lit up with a fluorescent molecule to help researchers study heart formation.
2020
picture-of-the-week
Picture of the week While this may seem like a nebula made up of interstellar clouds of dust and ionised gases, this image isn’t of a galaxy beyond the Milky Way.
2020
picture-of-the-week
Picture of the week Those heart-shaped cells aren't just for show. They help tell the story of two proteins working together
2020
picture-of-the-week
Picture of the week Beautiful flashes of blue colour help light the way for researchers to study cells in fruit fly larva that provide oxygen to tissues.
2020
picture-of-the-week
Science Discoveries at EMBL will help researchers to interpret one of the most common types of experiments in genomics and medical studies.
2020
science
Picture of the week The image shown here, taken by Daniel Rios-Barrera from the Leptin Group shows the cells of the early wing tissue of the fly during larval development.
2020
picture-of-the-week
Picture of the week What may look like a branch of a tree with the first flower buds emerging after winter are, in fact, tracheal cells of a fruit fly larva and their nuclei.
2020
picture-of-the-week
Science This technique provides a simple but effective way to study the functions of organs in living animals
2020
science
Picture of the week Fruit flies have something that we don’t have: they produce a protein called dumpy. This protein is the largest created by insects, and is comparable in size to the largest human protein – titin. While titin is vital for our muscle function, dumpy connects the soft cells of the insect’s…
2019
picture-of-the-week
Picture of the week Today’s picture of the week is not only a colourful one, it is also a snapshot of the vast number of shapes that the cells inside an animal body can adopt. How this variety comes about is investigated in the Leptin group at EMBL Heidelberg. To understand the shapes of the cells in fruit fly…
2019
picture-of-the-week
Science A conversation about art-science collaborations and the importance of drawing in biology.
2019
science
Picture of the week This image – resembling a network of rivers and canals – actually shows the tracheal tip cell of a fruit fly. Fruit flies are heavily used in research and they are a common model organism in developmental biology. Researchers at EMBL use the larvae of fruit flies to study tracheal cell…
2019
picture-of-the-week
Science The process cells use to ‘swallow’ up nutrients, hormones and other signals from their environment – called endocytosis – can play a crucial role in shaping the cells themselves, scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, have found. The study,…
2013
science
Science This may look like yet another video of a dividing cell, but there’s a catch. You are looking at chromosomes (red) being pulled apart by the mitotic spindle (green), but it’s not a cell, because there’s no cell membrane. Like a child sucking an egg out of its shell, Ivo Telley from the…
2013
science
Science What do you get when you dissect 10 000 fruit-fly larvae? A team of researchers led by the EMBL- European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) in the UK and the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics (MPI) in Germany has discovered a way in which cells can adjust the activity of many…
2012
science
Science “This video shows a fruit fly embryo from when it was about two-and-a-half hours old until it walked away from the microscope as a larva, 20 hours later,” says Lars Hufnagel, from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany. “It shows all the hallmarks of fruit fly…
2012
science
Science Like any law-abiding train passenger, a molecule called oskar RNA carries a stamped ticket detailing its destination and form of transport, scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, have found. They show that for this molecule, moving in the…
2012
science
Science If you wanted to draw your family tree, you could start by searching for people who share your surname. Cells, of course, don’t have surnames, but scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, have found that genetic switches called enhancers, and the…
2012
science
Science The scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, who ‘fathered’ the Digital Embryo have now given it wings, creating the Fly Digital Embryo. In work published today in Nature Methods, they were able to capture fruit fly development on film, and were the…
2010
science
Science Researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and the Max-Planck Institute of Immunobiology Freiburg have identified a novel protein complex that regulates around 4000 genes in the fruit fly Drosophila and likely plays an important role in mammals, too.…
2010
science
Science Embryonic development is like a well-organised building project, with the embryo’s DNA serving as the blueprint from which all construction details are derived. Cells carry out different functions according to a developmental plan, by expressing, i.e. turning on, different combinations of genes.…
2009
science
Science Researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) in Hinxton, UK, have revealed new insights into how sex chromosomes are regulated. A chromatin modifying enzyme helps compensate for the fact that…
2008
science
Science Over 30% of our genes are under the control of small molecules called microRNAs. They prevent specific genes from being turned into protein and regulate many crucial processes like cell division and development, but how they do so has remained unclear. Now researchers from the European Molecular…
2007
science
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