Extracellular environment stabilization of stem cell state identity via KDM3A👇🔥

The bumpy road leads to the nucleus--cool new mechanobiology!

Fantastic work connecting mechanotransduction stimuli, changes in 3D nuclear structure and cell identity! Must read

It finally happened. I'm beyond happy to see this work with @carmeloferrai.bsky.social is out now. This collaboration to study the link between mechanotransduction and epigenetic regulation started quite a while ago. It is kind of a miracle that we eventually got to this point against all odds.

War bestimmt das beste Start-up Projekt, da bin ich mir ganz sicher...🤮

I would call it the "Matthew effect" grant! Why is it that we always demand to "listen to the science", but when it comes to science related to the flaws and issues of our current research funding structure (and scientific publishing system for that matter), we are completely ignorant...?

Completely wrong direction imo. It would be better and more efficient to increase funding rates of existing schemes funding more of the already fundable, great ideas for projects that are out there instead of yet another call with, most probably, less than 10% success rate.

Your periodic reminder that science is not done by a few selected "stars scientists". Science is done by hundred of thousands. Siloed money mean a few flashy discoveries and a lot of waste. Want to change things? Make funding accessible and stop funding calls with less than 2% success rate.

What Christopher says!

ERC success rates are tanking and the move is... even bigger grants for fewer people? smh

Jane Goodall, one of my inspirations to study biology. What a big loss for humanity! RIP

Glasgow representation is strong @cellmech2025.bsky.social with @unistrathclyde.bsky.social & @uofglasgow.bsky.social @theglasgowcemi.bsky.social cell mechanobiologists united 😊!

🧵A thread of threads of our invited speakers 👇

On my way to CellMech25 in Leuven! I'm really looking forward to catching up with the Mechanobiology community! First time as Lecturer @unistrathclyde.bsky.social&PI @theglasgowcemi.bsky.social with parts of my group (Extra) Cellular Mechanobiology in Health and Disease @dylanjfowler.bsky.social 🤩!

Congratulations Carmelo and team, brilliant work showing that mechanostimuli (through sound waves) can provoke nuclear chromatin responses in mesenchymal stem cells which directs the cells towards osteogenic lineage🤩!

The core team of the Tenovus Scotland-funded Small Pilot Grant project "Leveraging mechanobiology for the optimisation of in vitro muscle-related disease models" is on the case😊, with a strong 4th&5th year students-driven component! @unistrathclyde.bsky.social @theglasgowcemi.bsky.social

Strathclyde named Scottish University of the Year and Runner-Up UK University of the Year by The Times and Sunday Times www.strath.ac.uk/whystrathcly...

Very interesting story on the nuclear mechanoresponse to sono-stimulation!

EpiSci - 🧬 - 🧪 - 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽 We just submitted an updated version of the previous preprint. Sonoepigenetic Modification Mechanoprimes Early Osteogenic Commitment in Mesenchymal Stem Cells www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We are very happy 😄 that our Rheinland-Pfalz & Scotland exchange project started, jointly awarded by @sulsa.bsky.social and JGU Scotland Hub, sponsored by the governments of 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 & Rheinland-Pfalz. 1/2 @unistrathclyde.bsky.social @theglasgowcemi.bsky.social @imbmainz.bsky.social @unimainz.bsky.social

BioMedEng25 is over! I really enjoyed my talk&the opportunity present my research. I also talked about unpublished work from a collaboration with @carmeloferrai.bsky.social that is getting closer&closer to being deposited on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social. Stay tuned 😀! @biomedeng25.bsky.social

This is an airyscan confocal movie of mitochondria (white) moving around in a mouse astrocyte. Actin filaments are in orange and microtubules are in blue.

Our study on the mechanosensitive behavior of cell adhesion, showing the existence of a force-transmission mechanism that behaves very differently from the well-known 'load-and-fail' mechanism, was published in Nature Physics: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A little more than a year that @carmeloferrai.bsky.social and I published our review "Mechanotransduction in stem cells"🤯! I'm happy that it was received well 😃! Stay tuned, more to come in this direction in a not too far future😎.

A paper that I published as a co-first author in 2014 (with G.M. Ferraris and V. Buttiglione, supervised by N. Sidenius, not on bluesky) reached 100 citations. Science social media weren't that big yet back then, so I seize this occasion to make a 🧵 about it now: 👉 www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

Getting something done at work

So ist es, liebes BMFTR: Die Chancen sind für jede Generation ✨vergleichbar schlecht✨! 12 Jahre prekäre Beschäftigung & anschließend fliegen die nicht mehr ganz so jungen Wissenschaftler_innen ins Weltall 🚀 … ah Moment … doch nicht … sie fliegen: RAUS! Das sind Chancen! #RundumSorglos #IchBinHanna

📜 A comprehensive strategy to strengthen bioimaging in Africa through the Africa Microscopy Initiative 🧑‍🔬 Michael Anton Reiche, Teng-Leong Chew, et al. 📔 Nature Cell Biology 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41... #️⃣ (Feeds) #Microscopy #CellBiology #AfricaMicroscopyInitiative

Please RT and/or give me a name if you think someone from underrepresented countries deserves a forum:

#Science Bluesky, do your thing: We're organising the International Symposium on Mechanobiology (ISMB) 2026 in #Glasgow & we're looking for research groups in Latin America & Africa who are doing great work in #Mechanobiology or adjacent areas. Can you indicate some names to me?

A brilliant idea that become a fantastic approach🤯:

At the Center of the Cellular Microenvironment’s impact workshop. Really enjoying the space to think together about where cell engineering and mechanobiology are headed. @theglasgowcemi.bsky.social @unistrathclyde.bsky.social

Very important publication highlighting the need for more realistic cell culture disease models that recapitulate better (patho)physiological conditions.

“The results revealed that researchers who received renewals without a funding gap were less likely to switch research topics and investigate a wide array of subjects than were those in the control group, and they produced papers featuring newer or more unconventional combinations of ideas”

Retroactive or retrospective paper 🧵 (I like the term, thanks @nicopedroncelli.bsky.social):

This ligand binding-independent integrin signalling was driven by membrane tension. Indeed, the induction of this non-canonical integrin signalling was not restricted to uPAR/vitronectin interaction. This work introduced the cell membrane as a critical component of the molecular clutch.

I delved even deeper into this a few years later, further highlighting the importance of talin-mediated molecular clutch force loading in this process: 👉 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Consistently, some years later (2019), Changede et al. (Sheetz group) showed the existence of integrin nanoclusters bridges build up by activated, but unliganded, integrins. The binding to the thin matrix fibres was mediated by integrins in this case, but it's intriguing to think that this 1/2

...can involve also other cell adhesion receptors (e.g., GPI-anchored, such as uPAR, or maybe syndecans, DDRs?) 2/2:

Interesting 🧵on a classic mechanotransduction paper of one of our members introducing the concept of ligand binding-independent integrin signalling driven by membrane tension:

This study assessed the possibility of ligand-independent adhesion signalling by integrins, which was a quite controversial hypothesis at the time (maybe still is). We found that e.g. uPAR-mediated adhesion to vitronectin can induce integrin signalling that does not require integrin ligand binding:

A paper that I published as a co-first author in 2014 (with G.M. Ferraris and V. Buttiglione, supervised by N. Sidenius, not on bluesky) reached 100 citations. Science social media weren't that big yet back then, so I seize this occasion to make a 🧵 about it now: 👉 www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

The abstract submission deadline of BioMedGen2025 @biomedeng25.bsky.social has been extended. You still have the chance to submit until the 19th of May. Meet us all in Glasgow😊: 👉 biomedeng.org/biomedeng25/

Totally agree. If Europe was serious in positioning itself as a new strong research hub in the world, we would need to invest hundreds of billions (as made available for weapons) not millions, that's basically just a drop in the ocean...

If Europe was serious in positioning itself as a new strong research hub in the world, we would need to invest hundreds of billions (as made available for weapons) not millions, that's basically just a drop in the ocean...

If Europe was serious in positioning itself as a new strong research hub in the world, we would need to invest hundreds of billions (as made available for weapons) not millions, that's basically just a drop in the ocean...

It is a fantastic and rare opportunity that doesn't come up very often, our Department of Biomedical Engineering is searching for a new Head of Department at @unistrathclyde.bsky.social in Glasgow (deadline 9th of May): strathvacancies.engageats.co.uk/Vacancies/W/...

Great to see that our work on #viscoelastic #hydrogels for #cartilage #TissueEngineering was one of the most-read papers in Advanced Healthcare Materials @mattjwalker.bsky.social @delphe.bsky.social @manlio-tassieri.bsky.social Check it out here doi.org/10.1002/adhm... 🧪

In this work my team and co-workers demonstrated a purely mechanically regulated route for #StemCell #Chondrogenesis via engineering of the hydrogels #viscous nature. No #growthfactors needed. Conducted @uofglasgow.bsky.social @theglasgowcemi.bsky.social Funded @ukri.org

Maybe the opportunity of your life, become the Head of the wonderful Department of Biomedical Engineering @unistrathclyde.bsky.social in Glasgow in beautiful 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 : 👉 jobs.sciencecareers.org/job/671921/h...