BPoD

Lit Accordingly

One way to study cellular functions is to break them down to the basics and rebuild from the bottom up. Housed in a basic cell-like membraned structure called a liposome, researchers have studied many cellular functions, including DNA replication. This current study describes a a method for sorting such synthetic cells according to the function of interest, based on fluorescence intensity using confocal microscopy linked with neural network–assisted image analysis

Read the published research article here

Image from work by Marijn van den Brink and colleagues

Department of Bionanoscience, Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology, HZ Delft, Netherlands

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Science Advances, June 2026

Flow State

Cells and tissues grown in the lab can be a bit like a bathtub in a showroom: a fair representation, but of limited use until they’re properly plumbed in. A new development aims to solve this with a platform to grow human blood vessel networks, connected to tiny pumps (dubbed Vascularized In Vitro Organ Systems or VIVOS), which provide lab-grown tissues with a more realistic approximation of vascular flow. The vessels can integrate with a broad range of lab-grown mini organs including lung and cerebral organoids (pictured, brain cells in green and yellow, vascular network labelled red). They allow direct study of how blood flow impacts cells, and the team observed how mechanical forces in the flow cause changes in lining cells that result in vessel networks reshaping. The researchers also modelled vascular malformation in a condition called hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia, illustrating its potential for direct disease investigations as well as supporting more realistic lab-grown environments.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Image from work by Tiger H.Z. Jian and colleagues

Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Published in bioRxiv, March 2026 (not peer reviewed)

Bridge of Sight

Sight depends on the many different cell types of the eye's retina all functioning correctly in the right place. The photoreceptor cells (PRC) that respond to the light and transduce that response to the brain are constantly being degraded and renewed. Ingestion of the degraded material is managed by the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), normally in close contact with PRC. This study now shows that RPE continue to perform their function in eye diseases where PRC and RPE are separated, thanks to the ability of RPE to reach out pseudopodia (membrane extensions) across that gap. Shown is a 3D reconstruction of an RPE pseudopod (light green) bridging the expanded sub-retinal space in a mouse model of a retinal degenerative disease.

Read the published research article here

Image from work by Tylor R. Lewis and colleagues

Department of Ophthalmology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Journal of Clinical Investigation, April 2026

Seeing is Believing

Investigating how the eye develops is a challenge in our delicate embryos. Often scientists turn to simpler, yet similar organisms like the medaka fish (Oryzias latipes) looking for pieces of the overall puzzle. The consensus is the animal eye usually forms from two parts: the lens develops on the 'outside' of a layer of embryonic tissue, while the retina forms from a loop of progenitor cells growing behind the lens. Yet these medaka lenses (pink) develop on the 'inside' of the retinas (green) – so what is going on? These early eyes are grown from an organoid, a ball of stem cells nurtured in the lab to mimic the real thing. In this case, however, they’ve developed differently, possibly revealing multiple evolutionary paths to achieve a developed eye, but also highlighting the importance of different perspectives and techniques when building a picture of delicate early life.

Image made using Leica Microsystems microscopy

Written by John Ankers

Image from work by Elin Stahl and Miguel Angel Delgado-Toscano, and colleagues

Centre for Organismal Studies Heidelberg (COS), Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany, Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in eLife (reviewed preprint), April 2026

Brain’s Buildings Regs

Our brain starts with radial glial cells – they not only form a scaffold around which the brain's cortex is built, they're also the progenitors for the cortical neurons that develop there. Studying mouse tissue and organoids (lab-grown organ models) created from human tissue, this report reveals that the protein FABP7 is essential for maintaining the scaffold and for neurons developing in the right place

Read the published research article here

Image from work by Yuanhao Wang, Xu Zhang and Ru Ba, colleagues

Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), April 2026

Mind Gone Blank

A blank page can be daunting to look at – is it better to start from scratch or bring an earlier version into shape? Scientists wonder the same thing about the brain, where memories are stored in the connections between circuits of neurons in a region called the hippocampus. Examining the hippocampus of mice at different developmental stages, they find dense connections between pyramidal neurons (highlighted in white on the left), compared to the 'edited' network later in life (right). This suggests that, rather than a blank page, the brain starts with a 'rough draft' with more connections than it needs, and progressively removes or changes these based on experience. This neuroplasticity may be more economical, allowing the brains of mice and humans alike to meet developmental deadlines.

Written by John Ankers

Image from work by Victor Vargas-Barroso and colleagues

Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), Klosterneuburg, Austria

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Nature Communications, April 2026

Lining the Uterus

Adult stem cells regenerate the womb-lining or endometrium, and are thought to contribute to the debilitating disorder endometriosis. In this study, using endometrial tissue from humans and mice, the stem cells bearing a high level of the enzyme ALDH1A1 were identified as the critical hormone-sensitive population underlying the lining's development and function – and therefore a possible target for treating endometriosis

Read the published research article here

Image from work by Suni Tang and colleagues

Department of Pathology & Immunology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in eLife (reviewed preprint), May 2026

Partial Clean-up

Like a cleaner who responds to a complaint of a spill by sweeping it under the rug, the brain’s immune cells seem to deliver an incomplete solution to some fungal infections. Researchers looked at how mouse microglia, the brain’s resident immune cells, responded to infection by Cryptococcus neoformans, a fungus that can cause fatal meningitis. They saw the immune cells detect the fungus in blood vessels before it breaches the protective blood-brain barrier. Crumbs shed from the fungus capsule are taken up by cells lining the blood vessels, which raise the alarm and call for help. Microglia (green) wrap around the vessels (pink) and engulf the fungi (red), but fail to fully kill them, and may even provide a nutrient-rich environment for the fungus to further thrive. Understanding, and ultimately manipulating, this interaction could lead to future strategies to treat or prevent fungal brain infections.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Image from work by Chenxu Feng, Ge Wang and Yixuan Wang, and colleagues

Sheng Yushou Center of Cell Biology and Immunology, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in PLOS Biology, February 2026

Ear Bending

There's still a lot to be learnt about how the inner ear's complex architecture – composed of many cell types and regions with specific roles in hearing and balance – develops in the embryo. Now, studying zebrafish larvae, researchers have defined an atlas of genes 'turned on' in single cells of the developing inner ear. These 3D renderings from microscopy images show the normal inner ear architecture (left) and its failure to develop (right) in larvae lacking the lmx1bb gene, thereby revealing this gene's important role, along with that of others in specific zones.

Read the published research article here

Image from work by Akankshi Munjal and Kalki Kukreja, and colleagues

Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in eLife (reviewed preprint), May 2026

The RoRγt Decision

Friend or foe? It’s a decision our immune system must make millions of times per day. Get the choice wrong and risk letting a dangerous pathogen take hold. Even worse, perhaps, would be to attack our own tissues by mistake. To make the right call, cells called APCs take chemical fragments from potentially threatening molecules and meet with a defensive force of T-cells to 'double check' whether an immune response is necessary. Researchers find that waving through harmless food molecules through the intestines – an example of immune tolerance – requires special types of APC (highlighted in red and green) to meet with T-cells (blue and red) controlled by a protein called RORγt. Developing drugs to aid this communication, or restore RORγt in patients’ guts, might be the answer to calming food allergies and preventing unnecessary immune attacks leading to inflammatory bowel disease.

Written by John Ankers

Image provided by Dr. Gregory F. Sonnenberg. Re paper by Mengze Lyu & Gregory F. Sonnenberg

Joan and Sanford I. Weill Department of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University, New York, NY, USA

Image originally published with no restrictions equating to Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Research published in Journal of Experimental Medicine, April 2026

Developing a Heart

During embryo development 'making' a heart requires a fine balance of factors stimulating or suppressing different cell types at the right time in the right place. This study in zebrafish defines the equilibrium required of two transcription factors, Nr2f1a and Isl1, to correctly drive differentiation from progenitor cells and maintain the identities of three heart cell types – pacemaker cardiomyocytes, atrial cardiomyocytes and epicardial cells

Read the published research article here

Image from work by Kendall E. Martin and colleagues

Molecular Cardiovascular Biology Division and Heart Institute, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Development, June 2026

New Improved Infusions

CAR T therapy, in which a patient’s (or a donor’s) T cells are reprogrammed to attack cancer cells, has revolutionised the treatment of blood cancers. But the benefits don’t always last because the cells themselves sometimes don’t. Research in animals indicates that if, prior to infusion, the cells are enriched for T memory stem cells, which have an inherent self-renewal capacity, they last longer and perform better. Sure enough, a recent first-in-human trial confirmed stem-enriched CAR T cells outshone standard cells, persisting in the body and improving clinical outcomes. The images above are PET-CT scans of a leukaemia patient before (left), thirteen days after (middle) and ninety-four days after (right) transfusion with the enriched cells and show a striking reduction in bone lesions (green signals in the vertebrae and legs). While this cell preparation takes longer, the results suggest its worth the effort, offering more consistent and persistent clinical benefits.

Written by Ruth Williams

Image from work by Luca Gattinoni and Gabriele Inchingolo, and colleagues

Division of Functional Immune Cell Modulation, Leibniz Institute for Immunotherapy, Regensburg, Germany; Surgery Branch, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Cell, April 2026

MOSAIC Multitasker

Multimodal Optical Scope with Adaptive Imaging Correction (MOSAIC) is an optical microscope that can be applied to many situations – across scale and depth this single instrument can achieve super resolution in tissues and living mice

Read the published research article here

Clip from video from work by Tian-Ming Fu, Gaoxiang Liu, Daniel E. Milkie and Xiongtao Ruan, and colleagues

Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA; Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, VA, USA

Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Nature Methods, May 2026

Faulty Assassins

Natural killer (NK) cells, like the one shown, live up to their name. During a viral infection, these specialised immune cells identify compromised host cells and deploy toxic granules (magenta) to obliterate them. In a rare but sometimes fatal autoinflammatory disorder called mevalonate kinase deficiency (MKD), however, NK cells fail to properly deliver the poison. As the viral infection rages on, these faulty NK cells call for back up – secreting the cytokine IFN-gamma to recruit other immune cells – which sends inflammation into overdrive. Even without infections, patients with MKD suffer regular inflammatory flare ups and traditional anti-inflammatories aren’t always effective. Recently, in light of the NK cell findings, an IFN-gamma inhibitor called baricitinib (used to treat other autoimmune disorders) was given to a severely ill infant with MKD. While the child ultimately succumbed to the illness, the drug did significantly reduce their inflammation, suggesting it might help other MKD patients.

Written by Ruth Williams

Image by James Cremasco, Garvan Institute, re work by Marcia A. Munoz, Iona S. Schuster & James Cremasco, and colleagues

Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Darlinghurst, NSW, Australia

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Research published in Immunity, May 2026

Remains in Light

3D deep tissue imaging reveals the remaining insulin-producing β cells in the whole pancreas of a deceased individual with the autoimmune disease late-onset type I diabetes

Read the published research article here

Still from a video from work by Joakim Lehrstrand and Max Hahn, and colleagues

Department of Medical and Translational Biology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Published in Science Advances, May 2026

Painting from Life

The cell nucleus is like a bustling capital city at night – thriving with lively traffic in complete darkness were it not for artificial light. Important decisions made inside can affect the life of the entire cell. Here researchers create maps of the organisation of the nucleus in human cells. They use an updated version of a technique called DNA-PAINT to label different nuclear molecules with tiny strands of DNA carrying different colours, blinking like street lights (although a million times smaller) when zapped with lasers from above. The yellow structures here are the chromatin protecting the genetic information, usually open and spread out so genes can be 'switched on' or transcribed to guide the cell. Here though, DNA-PAINT pictures the scene after transcription is blocked, watching as regions of the chromatin condense into spherical 'speckles'. Such details may help to explore nuclear life in health and disease.

Written by John Ankers

Image from work by Abhinav Banerjee, and Micky Anand, and colleagues

Department of Biochemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Malleswaram, Bangalore, India

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Published in Nature Communications, April 2026

Red Then Dead

B cells - major members of the immune system – can become cancerous (B-cell leukaemias or lymphomas) or malfunction (such as in autoimmune diseases like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis) and treatments can include targeting them for destruction by binding them with an antibody marker specific to them. Often not efficient, this B-cell removal approach has been improved by presenting the binding antibody on red blood cells (in green here) that mark the offending cells (fluorescing red here) with a loud and clear 'eat me' tag

Read the published research article here

Image from work by Jiaqi Liu, Fengju Wang and Lian Li

Key Laboratory of Drug-Targeting and Drug Delivery System of the Education Ministry, West China School of Pharmacy, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Sciences Advances, May 2026