Microfluidic pumping with active nematics! Self-organized and self-sustained. No external pumps. @pnas.org @ub.edu www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... #ActiveMatter #Microfluidics #SoftMatter

New preprint! 🚨 We uncover a slow adaptation to stretch that links star-bundling of keratin filaments with nuclear escape from its keratin cage. Led by @tomgolde.bsky.social‬ 🙌 @IBECBarcelona www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Collective cell motion has many forms, but rotation is the coolest of them all. I'm @onenimesa.bsky.social , and in this short🧵, I'll highlight some instances of global tissue rotation like this one from @BauschLab

Lab’s latest: (mouse) mums grow their guts during pregnancy and lactation: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

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

FINALLY out in #Science Advances! 🎉 3 years of hard work, a fantastic team — and I’m proud to be first and co-corresponding author! It's about Plexin signaling driving collective cell migration & organ sculpting. Check out the videos 😀 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #DevBio #CellBio #Microscopy

What do we see when looking at cells under the microscope? 👉Some are bigger than others, some are elongated and align with the neighbors & others seem to move. Cool, right? But wouldn't it be cooler to quantify these observations? I'm @juliaeckert.bsky.social. Let's explore some analysis software!‬

Development of a transgenic zebrafish embryo. Credit to Dr. Mario Mendieta-Serrano. #ZebrafishZunday 🧪

Happy #FluorescenceFriday!

The tip of the cantilever consists of a fluorescent bead that contacts the epiblast. Because we know the force necessary to bend the cantilever, we can perform mechanical assays by driving the bead across the embryo and measure in real time the force applied to the tissue.

🚨📣 New preprint alert! Excited to share my new postdoc work on direct force and mechanical properties measurements in live embryos! A great team effort with A. Chamolly (theory), under the supervision of F. Corson and @jeromegros.bsky.social 📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #devbio #mechanics

Collective cell migration is fascinating! Some tissues behave like fluids (motile), others like solids (jammed). Check out some papers exploring this topic in this thread.

Trichoplax adhaerens is one of the simplest and most enigmatic animals on earth. Its body shows incredible fluidity, changing shape within minutes. In a recent visit by Andrea Pasini we had the chance to host and observe these amazing animals live. [movie accelerated 3x; animal 0.5 to 1 mm in size]

B. Aigouy et al., Cell flow reorients the axis of planar polarity in the wing epithelium of Drosophila. Cell (2010). #EpithelialMechanics buff.ly/vH41dfH

New in Nature Physics! In a great collaboration with @junlab.bsky.social and my students Henrik Weyer & @lwuerthner.bsky.social, we show how Min proteins in E. coli self-organize into robust, efficient patterns ensuring accurate cell division across conditions. 📄 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

It's #MicroscopyMonday, so let's take a peek into the 🔬 This movie was taken by Shinya Inuoe, who built the polarizing microscope that allowed scientists to see mitotic spindle fibers live for the first time. Dr. Inuoe premiered his research at MBL.

How can organs regenerate fast? Bioelectricity helps -- by coupling sub-second electrical injury signals to regenerative proliferation. First preprint from my potsdoc :D with @liujinghui.bsky.social @ritamateus.bsky.social @mpi-cbg.de and collaborators @mpipks.bsky.social @csbdresden.bsky.social

Flocking and active solid behavior of epithelial cells in our new study in @pnas.org Great work of Y. Shen, J. O'Byrne and @andreasschoenit.bsky.social and collaboration with A. Maitra and R. Voituriez! | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

New paper on a field theory for coupling nematic ordering of the actin filaments with tissue elasticity. arxiv.org/abs/2504.10689

Our new review on topological defects 🌀 in polar active matter is out on arXiv! Co-authored by Luiza Angheluta, Anna Lång, @emmalaang.bsky.social, and @stigoveboe.bsky.social. #ActiveMatter #TopologicalDefects #CollectiveBehavior arxiv.org/abs/2504.03284

Congratulations to Zihui, Sano-san, and the team on this interesting work! They found that +1 topological defects attract neural progenitors—an observation that seems at odds with expectations for an extensile active nematic. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Really excited to present the results of a great collaboration between our group @poldresden.bsky.social and Elliot Hawkes at @ucsantabarbara.bsky.social, which were just published in @science.org. A mix of physics, biology and robotics! 🤖 😀 ▶️ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

For #FluorescenceFriday, large lipid droplets (orange) and alpha-spectrin (blue) are shown in adipocytes 🔬 #Microscopy #CellBiology

New paper from the lab🎈. Introducing Micro Immune Response On-chip (MIRO), a device that replicates tumors and their microenvironment to better understand responses to immunotherapies (cyan=immune cells, red=cancer, green=CAFs). www.nature.com/articles/s41... @ibecbarcelona.eu

Thrilled to share our new preprint on detecting the nematic orientation field on surfaces of 3D multicellular systems! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Huge thanks to all authors: @tobyandrews.bsky.social,Joe Pollard, @rashmi-priya.bsky.social, @yap-lab.bsky.social &Richard Morris Any 3D systems?👇

Cells are strong & generate forces while interacting with their environment. Traction Force Microscopy has been instrumental in measuring these forces, revealing the underlying mechanics. Let's explore pioneering papers in this 🧵by @onenimesa.bsky.social & @juliaeckert.bsky.social