André Forjaz

PhD candidate @ Johns Hopkins Univ. | Wirtz Lab | Institute of Nano biotechnology (INBT) 🇵🇹

[André Forjaz @andreforjaz]

Not the official Science Advances cover of this month, but you can still find it in the current issue!

Check our latest paper where we used 3D-CODA to design assembloids that mimic the complexity of human fallopian tubes.

Paper:https://t.co/e3jTJ55iQp

[Bloomberg Distinguished Professors @JHU_BDPs]

Welcome renowned biologist, @apombo1, who joins @JohnsHopkins as the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Genome Biology.

https://t.co/sURhIvNmKq

[Cell Press Blue @cellpressblue]

From @AshleyKiemen, @deniswirtz, & colleagues, (@JohnsHopkins @HopkinsMedicine): Quantitative 3D histology reveals localized immune remodeling during early pancreatic cancer progression https://t.co/lWSLgjpTeB

#ResearchWithInfinitePotential

[Denis Wirtz @deniswirtz]

Blood vessel mapping in 3D in a rhesus macaque embryo.

We used CODA.

More here: https://t.co/LqZrO7Wnfp

[Ashley Kiemen @AshleyKiemen]

The new Issue of @cellpressblue is out today with CODA on the cover! Here you see normal pancreatic ducts in blue with tens of precancerous lesions throughout in red. Read more in our recent article here: https://t.co/g23rDAavvY

[Denis Wirtz @deniswirtz]

Currently my favorite video from the lab...

Mapping of blood vessels and nerves in whole embryos of rhesus macaque.

They form scale-free fractals of dimensions 3 and 2, independently of development stage.

More here: https://t.co/LqZrO7Wnfp

[Denis Wirtz @deniswirtz]

The vasculature system as mapped by CODA.

Color coded by radius size and Strahler order.

We found that the vasculature for mouse, rhesus macaque, chicken, and turtle have the same scale-free space-filling fractal geometry (D = 3).

Here: https://t.co/LqZrO7Wnfp

[Konstantopoulos Lab @KKLabJHU]

So proud of our lab alumnus, @KaustavBera11 (PhD ’22), on joining @PurdueChemE as an Assistant Professor! Excited to see him launch his lab and continue advancing the frontiers of mechanobiology, biomaterials and tissue engineering. Wishing him every success in this new chapter!

[Denis Wirtz @deniswirtz]

Big paper coming out soon.

Using AI, we mapped embryos of mice, alligators, turtles, rhesus macaques, and chickens in 3D and at single-cell resolution.

We discovered something truly remarkable...stay tuned!

[Denis Wirtz @deniswirtz]

CODA mapping reveals that 100% of fallopian tubes of healthy women contain precancers!

The standard SEE-FIM protocol misses most of them due to undersampling. But our exhaustive assessment reveals that both pre- and postmenopausal women have them.

Here: https://t.co/UoTgbRK93s

[Anirban Maitra @Aiims1742]

Another cool #AI preprint from the @AshleyKiemen lab featuring a “Schrödinger-bridge” diffusion model for H&E to immunohistochemistry (IHC) conversion. Using type 1 DM islets to train the stain conversion model, here’s application to breast cancer slides.
https://t.co/IERkPUzAUx

[Denis Wirtz @deniswirtz]

3D mapping of blood vessels and nerves in the rhesus macaque embryo.

We used stacks of aligned H&Es and the CODA workflow (AI) to delineate the tree-like structures of blood vessels and nerves in embryos of several species.

More here: https://t.co/LqZrO7Wnfp

[Hao Yin @HaoYin20]

Power & Elegance of CODA
Whole-Embryo Vessel vs Nerve Network Form-Function Coupling
Monkey Mouse Turtle

Blood Vessel
Strict scale-invariant (bifurcation radius length)
Space-filling
Fractal ~3

Nerve
Less strict self-similarity
Optimized electrical conduction
Fractal ~2

Trifurcation comprises only <1% branching events

Could stare at Figure 7 & 8 for hours

What developmental programs initiate these media-specific transport optima?

@andreforjaz @AshleyKiemen @deniswirtz bioRxiv 2026
https://t.co/Zj8dIekEmf

[Rong Fan @RongFan8]

Congratulations to Andy on this well deserved recognition —AACR-G.H.A. Clowes Award for Outstanding Basic Cancer Research!! @JHUBME @JohnsHopkins @JHU_BDPs

[Ashley Kiemen @AshleyKiemen]

SMILE uses image-to-image Schrödinger bridge, a conditional diffusion model. Here SMILE can better distinguish insulin-producing cells (in red) from glucagon-producing cells (in blue) in pancreatic islets compared to other models.

[Ashley Kiemen @AshleyKiemen]

To build SMILE we worked with the network for pancreatic organ donors (nPOD) to build a unique and precisely registered training set of 50k H&amp;E-IHC tile pairs from normal and diabetic donors, well sampling across age, sex, and location within the pancreas

[Ashley Kiemen @AshleyKiemen]

New preprint alert! Here, Yu Shen introduces SMILE, a conditional diffusion model trained to recognize insulin, glucagon, and CD3 simultaneously from H&amp;E stained pancreas tissue. We use SMILE to 3D reconstruct normal and diabetic pancreatic islets

[Denis Wirtz @deniswirtz]

For those attending AACR26 in San Diego, I will demonstrate how CODA can map whole tumors, organs, and organisms in 3D and at single-cell resolution.

I will also show how CODA can integrate spatial transcriptomics, spatial proteomics, IHC, IMC, etc.

April 17, 3:30 pm

[Denis Wirtz @deniswirtz]

We skeletonized all nerves mapped in 3D and at single-cell resolution to study their geometry and topology in whole embryos.

Nerve networks display scale-invariant bifurcation geometry and fractal topology, across species and development stages.

Here: https://t.co/LqZrO7Wnfp

[Denis Wirtz @deniswirtz]

For scaling-laws aficionados (I am one), here are the graphs showing power-law behavior for vasculature for embryos (macaque, mouse, turtle).

This means that the vasculature of developing embryos is a scale-free fractal.

More here: https://t.co/LqZrO7Wnfp

[Denis Wirtz @deniswirtz]

The vascular network in developing embryos follow a similar geometric fractal pattern across species and development stages.

More here: https://t.co/LqZrO7Wnfp