🌟 Invited Speaker | Building the Embryo 🎤 We were delighted to open #YEN2026 with our invited speaker, Dr Diana Pinheiro (Institute of Molecular Pathology). Her fascinating talk explored how coordinated mechanical behaviours shape organised body structures during embryonic gastrulation. 🧬

Topology is the bedrock of modern math. But it doesn’t gel with algebra. A pair of mathematicians have proposed a new framework that eases topology’s limitations. Their work rewrites our understanding of how numbers behave. www.quantamagazine.org/two-research...

Now out in Physical Review X: Cell Bulging and Extrusion in a Three-Dimensional Bubbly Vertex Model for Curved Epithelial Sheets Full article: doi.org/10.1103/x82g... With @omdrozdowski.bsky.social, Büşra Kocameşe-Tamgacı, @kimboonekamp.bsky.social and @michaelboutros.bsky.social. Here a 🧶 1/n

Great to see this paper out! We simulate epithelial shells with the bubbly vertex model and find a mechanical instability at topological defects: Cells bulge outward if they are not actively stabilized. In experimental data we find that such stabilization indeed seems to occur in organoids.

📣 Job alert 📣 I am recruiting a #PhDstudent in Theoretical and Computational #Biophysics to join my new group at Eindhoven University of Technology @tue.nl for September 2026: www.tue.nl/en/working-a... Please apply or share with interested students!

📢 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)

Who knew that the perfect pasta sauce could lead to a Nobel Prize? Congrats to ISTA postdoc Fabrizio Olmeda and collaborators for winning the Ig Nobel Prize with their research on mastering Cacio e Pepe. Bravo! 🍝 🎉 Getting hungry? Here´s the recipe for delicious research: https://bit.ly/42vlpHm

📣 Now out in @physreve.bsky.social‬ as editors' suggestion: our theory on the role of different myosin II isoforms during cell migration. For standard parameters, A and B segregate to the front and the back, respectively. Yet for other parameter values, also oscillations are possible.

Really cool. Sleeping cats are apparently chiral. Now let‘s put them on a lattice and see if they align.

🥳 We celebrated the first-ever graduation ceremony of the #maxplanckschools at Bildungscampus in Heilbronn– Congratulations to all MPS graduates, and especially to our very own Brianda Santini, Kevin Kaub, Leila Abbaspour, and Oliver Drozdowski! Read more: www.maxplanckschools.org/551712/gradu...

Excited about the new work from Z. Dunajova & S. Tasciyan (with the Sixt lab @ISTA) - how the mechanical heterogeneity of the environment can be (by itself!) a driver of tumor cell dissemination! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Combination of in vitro exp, simulations and KPZ stat phys!👇🧵1/n

📝 New preprint! 📝 (1/6) Collaborative work between me and @omdrozdowski.bsky.social on 3D force inference for intestinal organoids is now on bioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... From the labs of @ulrichschwarz.bsky.social and @michaelboutros.bsky.social .bsky.social with help from U. Engel.

📢 Preprint alert 📢 (1/6) Our work on 3D force inference for intestinal organoids is now on bioRxiv: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Stunning collaboration between @omdrozdowski.bsky.social and @kimboonekamp.bsky.social from the lab of @michaelboutros.bsky.social and with Ulrike Engel. A short🧵...

📝 New preprint! 📝 Happy to share a new preprint from @kimboonekamp.bsky.social and me: We developed a 3D force inference method for budding organoids! biorxiv.org/content/10.1... From the labs of @ulrichschwarz.bsky.social and @michaelboutros.bsky.social with help from U. Engel. Here the details.

Spring brings new beginnings.. Happy to start my new position @istaresearch.bsky.social as a post doc with @ehannezo.bsky.social. Looking forward to learn new things and study new problems in the realm of multicellular structures. Also: Vienna is beautiful.

📣 Paper alert 📣 Our joint work with the group of Peter Bastian on the positioning of stress fibers in mechanically challenged cells is now out in the Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids This work was technically very challenging, so it deserves a 🧵 for explanations ...

Starting a theoretical biophysics starter pack, feel free to (self-) nominate, I’ll keep updating this in the next days/weeks! go.bsky.app/RMF7jUK

Great work by @omdrozdowski.bsky.social who found that the bubbly vertex model naturally leads to cell bulging and extrusion at topological (pentagonal) defects in curved epithelia. Read the preprint at arxiv.org/abs/2411.07141

Time to say goodbye, or rather hello. A while ago I did a few simulations of plate compression in the 3D vertex model for a publication in Physical Review Research. This plate, which was compressed a bit too much, nicely resembles the Bsky logo, so let's start the discussion appropriately!