Pawel Burkhardt

@pawelburkhardt.bsky.social

Evolution of neurons and nervous systems / choanoflagellates & ctenophores. Deputy Director & Group leader at the Michael Sars Centre, University of Bergen. Webpage: https://www4.uib.no/en/find-employees/pawel.burkhardt

@itaiyanai.bsky.social Oct 10, 2026, 2:30 PMReposted by @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social

1. CRISPR came from basic research on bacteria. 2. Optogenetics started with a discovery in algae. 3. The GFP protein comes from jellyfish. The biggest breakthroughs all trace to scientists following their curiosity, and this is one huge reason why we must keep funding basic research!

@jujumathieu.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 7:27 AMReposted by @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social

My favourite long neck choano found again in Mediterranean sea. Finger crossed to get it grow this time! 🤞
#protistsonsky

@tuexplorer1.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 9:56 PMReposted by @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social

@noncompliantcyborg.bsky.social check out the amazing zooms on this Lobate Ctenophore! Epic flying, Pilots!
@schmidtocean.bsky.social dive 969 #samplinggap #MarineLife

@micromotility.bsky.social Oct 5, 2026, 11:02 AMReposted by @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social

yes so happy for him!!! this is exactly why we do curiosity-driven science... #chlamydomonas #protistsonsky

Funders and universities are you watching...???

@sarahmoeba.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 3:36 PMReposted by @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social

Thrilled to announce my work on Filoreta, a protist that looks like a neuron!
authors.elsevier.com/c/1nvAC3QW8S...

@wcratcliff.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 8:57 PMReposted by @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social

Out today in @nature.com: our review on how single cells evolve into multicellular organisms. With Ozan Bozdag, @kaitong25.bsky.social, Peter Yunker, and @matthewherron.bsky.social.

rdcu.be/9ZuiKow9twKa

For an overview, check out the video below.

@endofthepier.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 5:07 PMReposted by @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social

Protists are practically falling over themselves to become multicellular. So why did so few lineages manage to achieve complex, obligate multicellularity as a way of life? A Review in @nature.com digs in www.nature.com/articles/s41...

@caseywdunn.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 4:39 PMReposted by @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social

Our new tool corpus makes biodiversity literature searchable by AI agents via MCP, with provenance to source text and figures. With @shchurch.bsky.social , Felipe Zapata, and Maciej Mańko. In @currentbiology.bsky.social - www.cell.com/current-biol... Code: github.com/caseywdunn/c...

@pawelburkhardt.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 5:57 PM

From bioRxiv to PNAS! 🎉

Very happy to see our paper “Diversity and spatial segregation of TRP channels in the closest relatives of animals” now published in @pnas.org.

Another piece in the puzzle of how animal cell signalling evolved.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

@sophiemartinlab.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 9:03 PMReposted by @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social

Happy to share our latest work showing that fungal cell fusion not only requires local cell wall digestion but also inhibition of cell wall repair!

PAK-family kinases promote cell fusion irreversibility by preventing cell-wall repair

doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

Led by @juliacoronasserna.bsky.social

Post-fusion pak2 mutant cells with narrow fusion pore blocked by a vacuole

@mirimiam.bsky.social Oct 5, 2026, 10:38 AMReposted by @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social

🧬🧬🧬

Very happy to share our new preprint led by Fede Mantica (@fedemantica.bsky.social) on how tissue-specific alternative splicing (TS-AS) and gene expression (TS-GE) evolve across bilaterians! Thread below 🧵 1/11

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

@jekely.biologists.social.ap.brid.gy Oct 7, 2026, 8:11 AMReposted by @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social

In our new paper by Kata Szabó @Kata_Szabo
et al. we present optimised sample-preparation workflows for volume electron microscopy for entire small marine organisms. The workflow includes high-pressure freezing, various freeze substitution protocols and […]

[Original post on biologists.social]

X-ray image of a platynereis annelid worm larva collected at the European Sycnrotron Facility at Grenoble. The left image shows morphological rendering of a 6-day-old Platynereis scanned at 100 nm/px, the right images show individual image planes of the same larva scanned at 55 nm/px or 20 nm/px.

@pawelburkhardt.bsky.social Oct 4, 2026, 8:05 AM

And full credit to @iramaegele.bsky.social, @robertosantoro.bsky.social, Brian Wehner and Synne Ingebrigtsen from our lab who brought these beauties in from Sotra today! 🙌 2/2

@pawelburkhardt.bsky.social Oct 4, 2026, 8:05 AM

Happy #CtenophoreDay!

Ctenophores are back. Freshly sampled Mnemiopsis leidyi from Sotra, Norway. These beautiful comb jellies continue to surprise us and are helping reveal new insights into the early evolution of nervous systems. 🌊✨

#CombJellies #Evolution #Neuroscience

1/2

@egmitchell.bsky.social Oct 3, 2026, 2:11 AMReposted by @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social

Wrapping up a fantastic field season #laserscanning #Ediacaran fossils in Newfoundland @discoverygeoparknl.bsky.social and Mistaken Point. Our 10th year of laser scanning 🥳

@thibautbrunet.bsky.social Oct 1, 2026, 9:16 AMReposted by @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social

Pre-eukaryotic ancestry of actin-based cell crawling 🤯 An instant must read

@tessamontague.bsky.social Sep 29, 2026, 1:40 AMReposted by @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social

I'm excited to share our new preprint: Generation of a transgenic cephalopod
tinyurl.com/pc86jxz8

Cephalopods (cuttlefish, octopus & squid) are crazy critters that dynamically camouflage to their surroundings by changing the color, pattern, & texture of their skin, which they control w their brain.

@multicellgenome.bsky.social Sep 28, 2026, 11:41 AMReposted by @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social

We have a new branch in the family tree of animals: Atreyea- a previously unrecognized lineage among the closest unicell relatives of animals.

Led by @konsmitsi.bsky.social & @freejakoba.bsky.social together with a fantastic team of collaborators.

🔗 papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

#protistsOnSky

@alisonfisk.bsky.social Sep 27, 2026, 5:57 PMReposted by @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social

A 5,000 year-old arrow has emerged from melting mountain ice in Norway, offering a glimpse into prehistoric hunting in the high mountains 🏹❄️

archaeologymag.com/2026/09/5000...

archaeologymag.com5,000-year-old arrow emerges as Norway’s melting mountain ice reveals older archaeological finds | Archaeology News Online MagazineA 5,000-year-old arrow is among 48 prehistoric finds recovered as melting ice reveals older archaeology in Norway’s Jotunheimen mountains.

@quantamagazine.org Sep 18, 2026, 6:02 PMReposted by @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social

Comb jellies are ancient marine predators whose hairlike extensions known as cilia refract light as they swim, giving them an iridescent shimmer. They are the largest animals known to use cilia for movement. www.quantamagazine.org/ctenophores-...

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