Amir Porat
@amirporat.bsky.social
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📥 216
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Red sea pedestrian. Herchel Smith Postdoctoral Fellow
@slcuplants.bsky.social
🌱
reposted by
Amir Porat
Kierzkowski Lab
2 days ago
New paper from our lab
@jxbotany.bsky.social
about auxin and cytokinin interactions during carpel initiation in Arabidopsis Led by
@andreagomezfe.bsky.social
in collaboration with
@defolter-lab.bsky.social
academic.oup.com/jxb/advance-...
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Amir Porat
Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University (SLCU)
5 days ago
🌱 2x David Sainsbury Career Development Fellowships at
@slcuplants.bsky.social
Launch your first independent research group in quantitative plant development, with generous support & world-class facilities. Deadline extended to 30 Jan 2026
www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/david-s...
#plantscijobs
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Amir Porat
8 days ago
Latest from our lab in 2025. A wonderful collaboration with Sabrina Sabatini's team at Sapienza University of Rome. How mechanical signals contribute to root growth and zonation
@cbgpmadrid.bsky.social
@upm.es
doi.org/10.1126/scia...
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Cell wall–derived mechanical signals control cell growth and division during root development
Mechanical changes in elongating root cells guide division of neighboring cells, shaping root development.
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aea8647
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Amir Porat
Vermot Lab
9 days ago
Check out our latest preprint on the cellular mechanical basis of Voronoi tessellations in epithelia! This biophysics study is inspired by disordered tessellations observed in zebrafish hearts 🤓🐟💙
#SulaimaanLim
#ChiuFanLeeLab
arxiv.org/html/2512.13...
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A left-handed banana! I've been looking for one for years.
10 days ago
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Amir Porat
Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University (SLCU)
17 days ago
🌱 2x David Sainsbury Career Development Fellowships at
@slcuplants.bsky.social
Unique opportunity for early-career researchers to launch their own independent research programme in quantitative plant development, with generous support & world-class facilities.
www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/david-s...
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Hadrien Oliveri
20 days ago
Active matter physics studies living beings as open, out of equilibrium, and emergent systems. In this perspective on plant morphogenesis, we show how such features arise from the basic hydromechanics of plant tissue and how to capture them in models. 🌱💧 Preprint 👇
arxiv.org/abs/2512.05554
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Amir Porat
Ricard Alert Zenón
25 days ago
New preprint! Do you like ocean waves? We found similar waves on bacterial colonies! We found that this collective behavior, known as rippling, is nothing but surface waves on an active nematic.
@princeton.edu
@mpipks.bsky.social
@ub.edu
@icreacommunity.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Amir Porat
Maizel lab
27 days ago
New preprint! SOSEKI polarity proteins are mechanoresponsive integrators linking growth and tissue mechanics during lateral root formation. Their polarity marks growth boundaries and reorganises in response to mechanical alterations —reshaping how we think about axis formation.
tinyurl.com/28p7af2w
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Amir Porat
Osvaldo Chara
about 1 month ago
Thrilled to have contributed to this
@nature.com
study on ethylene and cell wall mechanics in root compaction responses!! — Featuring Jiao Zhang, Lucas Peralta Ogorek,
@borgesaugust.bsky.social
, Bipin Pandey, Staffan Persson, Wanqi Zhang, Malcolm Bennett & more!!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Ethylene modulates cell wall mechanics for root responses to compaction - Nature
Soil compaction traps ethylene around roots, which causes transcriptional upregulation of Auxin Response Factor1, resulting in decreased root cortical cell wall thickness and thereby promoting root ra...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09765-7
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Beautiful!
add a skeleton here at some point
about 1 month ago
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Amir Porat
Anne-Lise Routier-Kierzkowska
about 2 months ago
How fast do plants actually grow? And which growth processes matter most for organ size? We dived into 176 papers, extracted and re-analyzed the data so you don’t have to!
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
@newphyt.bsky.social
@virajalim.bsky.social
@elvisbranchini.bsky.social
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A multiscale growth atlas of Arabidopsis: linking cell dynamics to organ development
Plant development depends on coordinated growth at cellular and organ scales, yet comparative analyses are hindered by inconsistent reporting of growth across studies. We conducted a meta-analysis o.....
https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.70576
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Amir Porat
New Phytologist
about 2 months ago
A multiscale growth atlas of Arabidopsis: linking cell dynamics to organ development Alimchandani et al.
@virajalim.bsky.social
@elvisbranchini.bsky.social
nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
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Amir Porat
Meroz Lab
about 2 months ago
New paper!💡 Amir Ohad developed this nifty setup to measure weak forces generated by freely moving plants, based on the deflection of a pendulum (straw from the cafeteria 😎), which does not require any tethering of the plant:
academic.oup.com/jxb/advance-...
Plant-obstacle interactions here we come!
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Amir Porat
epithelial mechanics fan club
about 1 year ago
Boutillon, A., Banavar, S. P., & Campàs, O. (2024). Conserved physical mechanisms of cell and tissue elongation. Development (Cambridge, England), 151(10), dev202687.
#EpithelialMechanicsReview
https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.202687
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Amir Porat
bioRxiv Plant Bio
2 months ago
Tissue-wide cues are sensed at the cellular level to coordinate microtubule orientations in plants
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.18.683221v1
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Amir Porat
Oliver Jensen
3 months ago
Harmonic fields and the mechanical response of a cellular monolayer to ablation
arxiv.org/abs/2510.05193
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reposted by
Amir Porat
Jessica C. Huss
3 months ago
One day in the lab, we accidentally discovered that the spines of a cactus 🌵 straighten when exposed to fog. I was intrigued and so were my collaborators. How does this work and what can be gained from it? Here are some of the answers in our new preprint:
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
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Amir Porat
Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University (SLCU)
3 months ago
🌿💻 Plant Models and Morphology 💻🌿 The 9th International Plant Computational Biology Workshop
@slcuplants.bsky.social
brought together mathematicians, computer scientists, physicists and biologists exploring plant development through models and simulations. Huge thanks to organisers and speakers!👏
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Amir Porat
Gabriella Mosca
4 months ago
The BM^2 Lab is hiring a Ph.D. student to work on a variety of problems connected to modeling of morphogenesis in plants (i.e. ovule curvature formation, fixed handedness establishment in certain plant organs and its link to cell wall mechanics). Please share!
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Amir Porat
Botanical Society of America
9 months ago
The self-replicating cellular organization of shoot apical
#meristems
New
#AJB
research by Étienne Couturier,
@paulallanos.bsky.social
, Antoine Lizée, Sébastien Besson & Jacques Dumais
bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
#botany
#plantscience
#bryophytes
#lycophytes
#ferns
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Amir Porat
Journal of Experimental Botany
4 months ago
🔎 DARWIN REVIEW 🔎 Mody et al. review the study of the cellular basis of plant morphogenesis with 3D digital organs 🔬🌱 🔗
doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...
#PlantScience
🧪
@kschneitz.bsky.social
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New preprint! "Understanding Shape and Residual Stress Dynamics in Rod-Like Plant Organs" 🌱 with
@merozlab.bsky.social
and
@routierlab.bsky.social
👉
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
add a skeleton here at some point
4 months ago
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reposted by
Amir Porat
Zoe Nemec Venza
4 months ago
Here it is! Epidermal cells in the root can figure out if they are covered by the root cap or not using mechanical signals! Thanks to
@ckirchhelle.bsky.social
,
@moritznowack.bsky.social
,
@nathan-german.bsky.social
Annamaria Kiss and all the others!
add a skeleton here at some point
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Amir Porat
arXiv cond-mat.soft Soft Condensed Matter
4 months ago
Kelly Aspinwall, Tyler Hain, M. Lisa Manning: Rigidity and mechanical response in biological structures
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.18432
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.18432
https://arxiv.org/html/2508.18432
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reposted by
Amir Porat
Camila Goldy🌱🔬🧉
4 months ago
Take a look at part of my work with
@mc-caillaud.bsky.social
at
@rdplab.bsky.social
about the role of actin cytoskeleton to maintain cytokinesis against cellular geometry 🌱🔬
add a skeleton here at some point
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reposted by
Amir Porat
Giulia Paci
5 months ago
Thrilled to share the first story from my postdoc! 🎉 A wonderful experiment + simulations collaboration. In the Drosophila wing, we find that 3D cell shapes affect signalling range and fine-tune developmental patterning
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Thread below ⬇️
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Arif Ashraf
5 months ago
🍀🔬 CSLD5-mediated cell wall remodelling regulates tissue mechanics and shoot meristem growth
@natcomms.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Movies: Cell division orientation in wild-type (attached) and csld5 (comment) shoot apical meristem.
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Amir Porat
Soeren Strauss
5 months ago
Submitted and out as preprint: A Plausible Model of Phyllotaxis Patterning from a Single Apical Cell. 🪴🌱 Including 3D cell analysis & modeling
#MorphoGraphX
#MorphoDynamX
#Physcomitrella
#Phyllotaxis
@roederlab.bsky.social
@richardsmithlab.bsky.social
dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn...
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Amir Porat
Ricard Alert Zenón
5 months ago
Dreaming of a swimming pool? Bacteria are surrounded by water! Water capillary forces organize bacterial colonies into gas, nematic streams, or droplet states. New paper
@natphys.nature.com
led by Matt Black and Chenyi Fei, with Ned Wingreen and Josh Shaevitz!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Capillary interactions drive the self-organization of bacterial colonies - Nature Physics
Bacteria tend to live in thin layers of water on surfaces. Now the capillary forces in these layers are shown to help organize the bacteria into dense packs.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-025-02965-y
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Amir Porat
Luis Alonso Baez
5 months ago
One of the key aspects influencing morphogenesis is mechanics. We mapped the mechanical properties of living roots at the tissue and cellular levels using Brillouin microscopy and molecular rotors.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Amir Porat
Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University (SLCU)
5 months ago
📢 Final hours to register for the Plant Computational Biology Workshop 2025! 📢 Don’t miss your chance to take part in talks and hands-on sessions with other plant modelling enthusiasts🪴 Deadline tomorrow (31 July) -
www.slcu.cam.ac.uk/computationa...
#ComputationalBiology
#PlantSci
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Amir Porat
Kalika Prasad
5 months ago
Our new paper is out! 1/14 How does an organ rebuild its shape after injury? It's not just about making new cells, but aligning them in the right direction — like bricks shaping a structure. We show that it's all driven by Cell Geometry!
www.cell.com/current-biol...
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Wound repair in plants guided by cell geometry
Mathew et al. show that growth conflicts reshape cells after injury, forming rhomboidal geometries that trigger diagonal divisions. This reorients cell files to restore tapered morphology. A two-step ...
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)00860-7
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Amir Porat
Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University (SLCU)
5 months ago
🚨Don’t miss out! Last weeks left to register for the Plant Computational Biology Workshop 2025, sponsored by
@cambup-lifesci.cambridge.org
🌱 📆Deadline 31 July -
www.slcu.cam.ac.uk/computationa...
#ComputationalBiology
#PlantSci
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reposted by
Amir Porat
Argyris Zardilis
5 months ago
Come and work with us! We are hiring a research assistant/associate
@slcuplants.bsky.social
to work on the RESYDE project (
www2.hu-berlin.de/resyde/
) using ML for multi-scale data and modelling to understand and engineer flower development! Details:
www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/52116/
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Home -
RESYDE: Re-engineering symmetry breaking in development and evolution. A consortia of plant scientists from Europe and Australia has been awarded a prestigious research grant from the ERC, which will ...
https://www2.hu-berlin.de/resyde/
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Amir Porat
James Briscoe
5 months ago
New work with Saunders & Charras labs Physical boundaries guide cell fate decisions during human trunk development Reaction Diffusion model shows how geometry shapes biology with TBXT expression forming consistent domains regardless of colony size & shape
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
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Boundary constraints can determine pattern emergence
The robust patterning of cell fates during embryonic development requires precise coordination of signalling gradients within defined spatial constraints. Using a geometrically confined in vitro syste...
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.21.665949v1
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Amir Porat
Anne-Lise Routier-Kierzkowska
5 months ago
Our recent review on the origin of mechanical stresses in plants, in collaboration with Agata Burian:
doi.org/10.1016/j.pb...
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reposted by
Amir Porat
epithelial mechanics fan club
6 months ago
Krishna, S., Gopinath, A., & Bhattacharjee, S. M. (2022). Ordering and topological defects in social wasps' nests. Scientific reports, 12(1), 12901.
#EpithelialMechanics
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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Highly recommended! 🪴
add a skeleton here at some point
6 months ago
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Amir Porat
Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University (SLCU)
7 months ago
🚨 Calling all plant modelling enthusiasts! Plant Computational Biology Workshop Open to researchers at all levels Workshop is free. Participants cover own travel, food & accommodation 📅 8-12 Sept | 💻 Talks, tools & hand-on sessions 🔗
www.slcu.cam.ac.uk/computationa...
#ComputationalBiology
#PlantSci
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Amir Porat
Meroz Lab
7 months ago
Mechanical interactions between plants and surroundings plays a huge role in understanding how plants negotiate their environment - but measuring low forces of free plants is hard! In this preprint Amir Ohad presents a new sensor - using a drinking straw!
www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
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Amir Porat
New York Times Opinion
7 months ago
The concern over antisemitism allegedly motivating the federal defunding of science at Harvard "is patently disingenuous, given Mr. Trump’s sympathy for Holocaust deniers and Hitler fans. The obvious motivation is to cripple civil society institutions,” writes the Harvard professor Steven Pinker.
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Opinion | Harvard Derangement Syndrome
In my 22 years as a Harvard professor, I have not been afraid to bite the hand that feeds me. So I’m hardly an apologist when I say the invective aimed at Harvard has become unhinged.
http://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/opinion/harvard-university-trump-administration.html?smid=bsky-nytopinion
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Amir Porat
7 months ago
🙌We are thrilled to announce that our latest paper has been published in eLife :
doi.org/10.7554/eLif...
💻Discover how MorphoNet can help you segment, curate, analyze and augment your 3D / 3D + t datasets without having to do a line of code, and much more ! 🦠
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MorphoNet 2.0: An innovative approach for qualitative assessment and segmentation curation of large-scale 3D time-lapse imaging datasets
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.106227.1
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Amir Porat
Mathematical Observatory
8 months ago
Buckling normally happens when you compress something slender, but 'tug' on a piece of crumpled paper at two points and it also buckles. Read more about how this "localized-TUG folding" occurs in many systems at:
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2423439122
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Amir Porat
Ricard Alert Zenón
8 months ago
New preprint! Non-reciprocal interactions don’t arise from a potential. Yet, we found a way to encode them in a Hamiltonian, which captures the phase transitions of non-reciprocal systems! With Yubo Shi, Roderich Moessner, and
@marinbukov.bsky.social
@mpipks.bsky.social
.
arxiv.org/pdf/2505.05246
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Amir Porat
Marie-Cécile Caillaud
8 months ago
🚨Our paper is out! If you ever wonder how four-way junctions are avoided during plant cell division, some answers here 🧬🍀🔬🧪🤓 👇
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Conserved mechanical hallmark guides four-way junction avoidance during plant cytokinesis
When building an organ, adjacent cells coordinate to form topologically stable junctions by integrating mechanosensitive signaling pathways. Positioni…
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098222500510X?dgcid=author
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Amir Porat
Anne-Lise Routier-Kierzkowska
8 months ago
Big thanks to Daniel Cosgrove & Enrico Coen
@innerworldsjic.bsky.social
for spotlighting our paper.
doi.org/10.1016/j.cu..
. Let’s call for more in vivo data on growth, elasticity & stress. Time to fuel the field with experiments! 🔬🖥️📏🧪🌿
@currentbiology.bsky.social
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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cu..
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www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
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8 months ago
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Amir Porat
RichardSmithLab
8 months ago
The Camelot paper is now published. If you ever wanted to try biomechanics, Camelot is an inexpensive and easy way to get started.
@matmajda.bsky.social
t.co/x3l0lllNS2
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Amir Porat
Arif Ashraf
8 months ago
🌾🔬 The "dancing" of CRW1 (COILING ROOT IN WATER 1) mutant is so amazing! Mechanosensing antagonizes ethylene signaling to promote root gravitropism in rice
@natcomms.nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
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