Transitions in development – an interview with Alejandro Torres-Sánchez We caught up with Alejandro @torres-sanchez.bsky.social from @embl.org Barcelona to talk about his path to becoming a group leader, ongoing collaborations and addressing gender imbalance in the lab. doi.org/10.1242/dev....

How does signalling control cortical tension? Using optogenetics and AFM, we show that myosin recruitment and cortical tension increase proportionally with RhoA signalling. More here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Super work by Pierre Bohec with Guillaume Salbreux and @dianakhorom.bsky.social

My lab is hiring a postdoc (ERC funded)! If you're interested, get in touch!

Researchers at EMBL Barcelona have launched LimbNET, a new online platform that integrates computer modeling, experimental data, and 2D live simulations for limb development. www.embl.org/news/science...

Come to Biomalpar xxii!!! We have an outstanding line up of speakers!!! It is a true honor to be an organizer of Biomalpar. It was the first conference I ever attended during my 2nd PhD year so it feels special. And don't miss the beautiful poster image from Hannah Fleckenstein!

Join EMBL's Interdisciplinary Postdoc Programme! 3 years funding, self-designed interdisciplinary project co-led between EMBL PI and PI in one of EMBL's actual, prospect or associate member states. In particular: AI&Theory, use mathem. models, physics principles and AI www.embl.org/about/info/p...

It’s time to talk about epithelial geometry and cancer. How can the architecture of an epithelium affect how tumors will grow and spread? In this thread, @jorgealmagro.bsky.social

📢 Paper alert 📢 Chirality is known to be important for the movement of microorganisms and active matter. In our new paper out today in @natphys.nature.com, we show that chirality is used by malaria parasites to control their motion patterns: doi.org/10.1038/s415... Here comes a 🧵 ... (1/9)

1/ Cerebral malaria is a severe form of malaria that causes damage to the blood vessels in the brain. With a #HealthResearch grant, @mariabernabeu.bsky.social#HealthResearchuses analytical techniques and human 3D models of blood vessels to ⬆️ our understanding and test new therapies. https://tinyurl.com/2vtjnwn6

Which features of tissue flows are most robust and how do they emerge from #EpithelialMechanics? I’m @alex-plum.bsky.social (@mattiaserra.bsky.social group) and I’ll be sharing some papers on characterizing and controlling avian gastrulation flows.

In our latest interview, Kristina Stapornwongkul, the newest group leader at IMBA, shares her journey to joining the institute, why she chose IMBA as the next step in her career, and her vision for her lab exploring how metabolism shapes embryonic development: https://imba.science/49fCrxl

📣Announcing the 4th edition of the EMBL‑IBEC Conference on “Engineering Multicellular Systems”, taking place 11–13 March 2026 in Barcelona. Exploring organoids, mechanobiology, embryo models, organ-on-chip systems, multiomics and more. Abstracts open now! events.ibecbarcelona.eu/embl-ibec-co...

Pre-print alert 🚨 We answer a longstanding question in the field. Do immune cells cause cerebral malaria? The answer is YES!!!! And independently of P. falciparum accumulation in the brain. www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

Zebrafish embryo undergoing gastrulation. Credit to Dr. Gopi Shah at EMBL. #ZebrafishZunday 🧪

Just hot out of the press! Rory developed a 3D microvessel model that recapitulates physiological pericyte coverage. We found that Plasmodium falciparum egress products disrupt the barrier and halt ang-1 secretion. The activator AKB-9778 could rescue barrier disruption! Congratulations, Rory!

Biophysicists are realizing that there is an undervalued element at play in early development: Aside from genes, mechanical forces also steer the growth of embryos. @annademming.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/genes-have-h...

I am super excited to announce that we have a tenure-track faculty position in biophysics open in the Department of Physics at Carnegie Mellon! 🧪 Interfolio link: apply.interfolio.com/174360 PLEASE, share widely across the blue skies! Let me briefly explain what we're looking for: 1/10

Please allow me to introduce... our new preprint 🎉 Together with Michael Zhao, Anna Erzberger and Alexander Aulehla, we investigate pattern formation due to aggregation in confined systems. You can find it at arxiv.org/abs/2509.08533 @michaelzhao.bsky.social @erzbergerlab.bsky.social

Have you ever wondered what happens with your microvessels after exposure to high temperature in fever? In this preprint former postdoc (ans soon to be PI) Viola Introini found that high temperatures cleaves glycocalyx , having severe consequences in malaria www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

Very excited to share - the ERC StG is a game-changer for us 🙏 We're going to learn the rules for timing control across cell types in the embryo and we think we can tune them too 🎛️ ⏳📈- reach out if you’d like to be involved !

The theory was part of my PhD work at KU Leuven with @lendertgelens.bsky.social, experimental work by colleagues in Leuven, the Yang lab (U Michigan) and Ferrell lab (Stanford). Find the paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We are searching for an enthusiastic scientist to join our team and establish annual killifish as a model system for early developmental biology and biophysics! @embl.org @embldbunit.bsky.social Apply here: embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/EMBL/job/Hei... Please re-post 🙏

Papafilippou, E., Baldauf, L., Charras, G., Kabla, A. J., & Bonfanti, A. (2025). Interplay of damage and repair in the control of epithelial tissue integrity in response to cyclic loading. Current opinion in cell biology, 94, 102511. #EpithelialMechanicsReview buff.ly/Qzj8OWl

We are happy to show one ourt first exciting papers. We have developed a blood-brain barrier model to study the disruptive effects caused by the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum. First, congratulations to the fearless @liviapiatti.bsky.social and @alinabatzi.bsky.social rdcu.be/ezBl7

Out now! Our very first [email protected], an impressive feat by @tobyandrews.bsky.social where we show how a developing heart grows and scales up its morphological complexity to keep beating...an excellent summary below ⬇️ www.cell.com/developmenta...

Our study on endothelial mechanics made the news! 🤩 Super nice and clear article on our findings and their implications. www.snexplores.org/article/how-...

Between his code-breaking work during World War II and his death in 1954, Alan Turing proposed a mechanism for pattern formation that has been identified in the arrangement of bacteria, stripes on seashells and even the distribution of human settlements.

New preprint out! We show how cellular nematic order can be harnessed to program tissue-wide force fields and guide 3D shape transformations. The tissue morphogenesis logic, now engineered into living, programmable materials. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #ActiveMatter #TissueEngineering

A study from @compscioxford.bsky.social finds Uber’s dynamic pricing leads to higher fares for riders, lower earnings for drivers, and more revenue for the company. Read more ⬇️

Almost all Nobel Prizes are awarded for work that is exploratory, or absolutely basic science with no obvious commercial or medical benefit. You cannot predict where advancements come from, so you have to invest in science and scientists. Targeted (corporate) science investment will never do this.

It has been a pretty intense and busy week (both for students and trainers) at the @embo.org @embl.org @barcelonacollaboratorium.com practical course 'Computational Modelling of Multicellular Systems' 🤓💻 Looking forward to future editions! @epimechfc.bsky.social @i2sysbio.es

🧵 🧪 1/ Hi! I’m excited to share our latest work, now on arXiv: Repulsive particle interactions at cellular interfaces enable selective information processing (arxiv.org/abs/2506.14739) Where we explore how the physical properties of living systems can help cells process spatial information.

Here our latest work on how morphogens trigger tissue phase transitions to tune their own length-scales and time-scales - An exciting collaboration with @zhvas.bsky.social @dianakhorom.bsky.social Bernat Corominas-Murtra and heroic experiments by the incredible @cami-autorino.bsky.social @embl.org

Very happy to see our latest collab out on bioarxiv - check out this thread by @cami-autorino.bsky.social

🔔 Proud to share the preprint of my PhD work in the Petridou group @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social @embl.org ✨ “A closed feedback between tissue phase transitions and morphogen gradients drives patterning dynamics” 🐟 🔁 📶 🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #devbio #biophysics 🧵⤵️

Want to help shape a young & dynamic research group while using #organoids to ask how #chromatin dynamics, #cell_state, & the #exposome contribute to #neuroendocrine #cancer? Apply for a postdoc position in our lab @embl.org Barcelona! #cancer_models. embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/d...

📢 Fresh off the press and featuring new exciting experiments! 🧪 We show how glycolytic activity instructs germ layer proportions through regulation of Nodal and Wnt signaling - happy to finally share this 😊 doi.org/10.1016/j.st... B2B with @jesseveenvliet.bsky.social lab: doi.org/10.1016/j.st... 🤩

Thrilled to share our new review article! “The role of extracellular matrix viscoelasticity in development and disease” written together with Olivia Courbot is now published in npj Biological Physics and Mechanics. www.nature.com/articles/s44... #ECM #Mechanobiology #DevelopmentalBiology

How do hydraulic forces impact critical processes such as tissue integrity, cell fate decisions, and embryo development? Hydraulics studies how fluids move and exert forces. Join me in exploring few articles on hydraulics in #EpithelialMechanics

🎉 Excited to share our new work: “Adhesion-driven tissue rigidification triggers epithelial cell polarity”, now on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social ! A huge thank you to @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social, Bernat, @crisp-c.bsky.social, Adrián, and everyone involved! 🙌 🧵⤵️

...and If this piqued your interest, we have fully-funded postdoc positions (4+2 years) available! Join the dynamic, collaborative community @crick.ac.uk with access to top-tier technology platforms and an outstanding postdoc training program. crick.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/External/job...

Find out how video games helped scientists visualise limb development. Laura Aviñó-Esteban, PhD student at EMBL Barcelona and first author of a recently published study, explains how video games helped her solve the problem of fragmented limb dev. visualisation. 💻🧪 www.embl.org/news/science...

Imagine being an engineer asked to build a material that withstands 100% strain, 150 times per minute—for a lifetime. Now imagine having to build it while it’s already functioning. That’s exactly what the heart does.

Standards are kept

Hello Bluesky 🦋 I’m excited to speak at next week’s VGZT! Please join in case you want to know more about my work on the metabolic control of germ layer proportions #devbio #metabolism #stemcellmodels @vgzt2021.bsky.social

‘Cue-less’ symmetry breaking in gastruloids Read this Research Highlight showcasing work from Kerim Anlaş, Nicola Gritti, Vikas Trivedi @viktri08.bsky.social and colleagues: journals.biologists.com/dev/article/... 🎥Onset of T expression in gastruloids

EMBL is Europe’s life sciences laboratory. 🧬🧪 At our sites in Barcelona,​​ Grenoble, Hamburg, Heidelberg, Hinxton, and Rome, we seek to understand life in context, from molecules to ecosystems. 🔬🌍 Follow us for our latest news and updates about research, training, services and more. www.embl.org

Thrilled that my first post here is about a great team effort led by Evelien Bunnick, Thomas Lavstsen, and Louise Turner. We identified broadly reactive mAb that inhibit parasite binding to PfEMP1 asaociates with severe maria. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08220-3

My first post on @bsky.app. So happy to announce that our work has been published in Development by @biologists.bsky.social doi.org/10.1242/dev.... Also a big thanks for "The people behind the papers" article as well! doi.org/10.1242/dev....