Cells come in many shapes and sizes, with diverse physiological functions. But how do #organelles and their interaction networks remodel during #differentiation of stem cells into different cell types? Here’s what we discovered about neuronal differentiation: 1/13

On my way to Basel, where I'll talk about "Mechanics of lumina" @biozentrum.unibas.ch tomorrow. Surprisingly, my 6-minute train connection at Fulda worked out.

Ok, I know promised a thread on the fascinating and important new research explaining what happened with the rare, serious side effects of AstraZeneca's and Johnson&Johnson's Covid-19 vaccines. So, @science.org story is here and 🧪🧵 is coming: www.science.org/content/arti...

5/ Marthe Gautier played a crucial role in identifying trisomy 21 as the cause of Down syndrome. Working with minimal institutional support, she built a cytogenetics laboratory from scratch and produced the preparations that revealed an extra chromosome in affected children.

4/ Ida Henrietta Hyde developed one of the first intracellular microelectrodes for stimulating and recording single cells. She opened new ways of studying nervous and circulatory systems, and became the first woman to receive a PhD in physiology from the University of Heidelberg.

3/ As a PhD student, Hilde Pröscholdt Mangold carried out the embryo transplantation experiments that demonstrated the organiser effect in newts. She performed more than 250 transplants, with only a handful surviving to provide the results that shaped the field.

2/ Ethel Browne Harvey’s experiments on hydra helped establish a key idea in developmental biology: that certain tissues can organise the development of an entire body plan. In 1909, she showed that grafting tissue from the mouth region could induce a second body axis.

1/ Today is UNESCO’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science #IDWGIS To mark the occasion, Lisa Thomann and Julie Batut highlight four pioneering biologists whose work shaped developmental biology, electrophysiology, and genetics. 🔗 buff.ly/eVipb6d

Join for our exciting meeting in Spain! Deadline for abstracts today!

Kidney organoids exposed to low oxygen recapitulate key features of acute kidney injury and maladaptive repair. Multi-omic profiling reveals conserved inflammatory, metabolic, and injury signatures matching human disease. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.04.558359

FCHo2, not talin, enables inside-out activation of integrin ɑvβ5 in curved adhesions www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Made a bluesky account especially for this - our new spotlight on a really interesting new paper is now available to read! Findings that go against what "should" be based on current knowledge are always some of my favourite discussions to have, one of the great joys of being in Biology. 🧬

Our take on a really interesting new study by the Franz lab at UCL, a version of epithelial polarity where you would not expect it! Read our Spotlight and the original paper!

Delighted to share our latest preprint "Filopodia-mediated trans-endocytosis" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Work driven by many people including Hanna, Marcela, Sujan, Marie-Catherine, Anna and Monika. Fantastic collaboration with Johanna Englund, Emilia Peuhu, and Eija Jokitalo

For International Day of Women and Girls in Science, #IDWGS2026, we are featuring some of our 'Transitions in development' interviewees from the past year. Browse our full series here: journals.biologists.com/dev/collecti...

Our #preprint list is up on FocalPlane. This list focusses on the latest tools in bioimage analysis. Let us know if you have any recommendations to add to our list. focalplane.biologists.com/2026/02/06/m...

Briefly, after organ injury, 100 milliseconds, we detected collective changes in membrane potential at the tissue level. This is so far the earliest detected wound-response!! This electric signal sparks the formation of a tissue-wide calcium wave👇

New paper alert!🤩Super proud that our story led by superstar postdocs @liujinghui.bsky.social and @nerlielisa.bsky.social is finally out! We found how electrical signals are key for promoting organ regenerative growth!!! A thread 🧵https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aec0687

This is who runs this account

Actomyosin cortex integration with complex plasma membrane topography in the early Drosophila embryo rupress.org/jcb/article-...

Some folks aren't afraid to speak up even if it might affect their career www.youtube.com/shorts/M23X4...

A fascinating review on the role of Activin in organ induction. Isn't it wild that in Xenopus embryos, a piece of the animal cap can be induced with Activin at different concentrations and buffers to form the ❤️, kidney, the pancreas, head, tail, and even a whole embryoid 🤯: doi.org/10.1016/j.cd...

How do cells orchestrate themselves to achieve a directional movement as a group? Hi, I’m @sayukihirano.bsky.social. In this thread, I’ll highlight key mechanisms of how cells communicate with each other to perform directional collective migration.

New preprint! We show how mesoscopic nonequilibrium fluctuations in active gels emerge from the breaking of detailed balance at the molecular scale. Warning: Long technical paper ahead! Enjoy! @mpipks.bsky.social @ub.edu @ubics.bsky.social @icreacommunity.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/2601.20483

The bioquant is a great place to work!

Skamrahl, M., Pang, H., Ferle, M., Gottwald, J., ..., Oswald, T. A., & Janshoff, A. (2021). Tight Junction ZO Proteins Maintain Tissue Fluidity, Ensuring Efficient Collective Cell Migration. Advanced science, 8(19), e2100478. #EpithelialMechanics buff.ly/CB2FSa7

Hirano, S., Kondo, Y., Kinoshita, N., Otani, T., Furuse, M., Ueno, N., & Aoki, K. (2024). ZO-1 shuttles between tight junctions and podosomes by riding ERK activation waves during collective cell migration. bioRxiv. #EpithelialMechanics buff.ly/ceRhy1r

My sister-in-law's dad died last week, in hospice in the VA hospital in Minneapolis. I just learned Alex Pretti was part of his care team. They shot Alex less than 1/2 mile from my niece's house while doing the same observation work that my niece is doing. These are real people. Step up folks!

(1/2) Our work with @freddyfrischknecht.bsky.social on the chirality of malaria parasites has found its home in the January issue of @natphys.nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Moreover, we are very happy that it comes with a news and views article 👍❤️😀

Villeneuve, C., McCreery, K. P., & Wickström, S. A. (2025). Measuring and manipulating mechanical forces during development. Nature cell biology, 27(4), 575–590. #EpithelialMechanicsReview buff.ly/nDfSfkS

Paper alert: Our study led by @evapillai.bsky.social and @sudimukherjee.bsky.social showing that mechanical properties of the #brain actively shape the molecular landscape during development and #axonpathfinding is finally out! www.nature.com/articles/s41... @pdncambridge.bsky.social @fau.de @MPZPM

Nothing gives me more joy than installing pytorch over and over again... /s

How can structures at the vertex of 3 cells have effects at the tissue level? Join me, @laura-rustarazo.bsky.social, to explore how tricellular junctions (TCJs) act as local tension sensors and regulators of global tissue organization. 🧵⤵️ doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Lovely work from my colleagues in the Grosshans lab--worth a look. The promise of extending this to get a full nano-scale picture of cell-cell junctions is very exciting

#DBfeature Geometric, cell cycle & maternal-to-zygotic transition-associated YAP dynamics during preimplantation embryo development YAP behavior depends on cell cycle-nuclei volume dynamics by Madeleine Chalifoux, Eszter Posfai et al www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Ein supereinfacher Elektromotor zum selber bauen: Ein (Neodym)Magnet, eine Eisenschraube, eine AA Batterie und ein Stück Draht. Und ab geht die wilde Fahrt.

Organoid technology is one of the most significant advancements deriving from developmental biology. Yet, many aspects of the biology of organoid itself remain elusive, one of which is the role of mesenchymal stem cells. This review: doi.org/10.1016/j.cd... by Wang et al discusses this in detail.

Congratulations to Byung Ho for spearheading this work and our HFSP team! Curious about the formation of networks of thin lumens and some physics behind it? Take a look at the paper. Byung Ho is looking for PI positions and he has amazing ideas and leadership. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

With Byung Ho Lee and Kana Fuji as first/lead authors, @anne-grapin.bsky.social group, @utokyoofficial.bsky.social, Inst. of Physics of Academia Sinica, & @igbmc.bsky.social found the shape of lumens in the developing pancreas is controlled by pressure & proliferation. www.mpi-cbg.de/news-outreac...

Heparan sulfate-function is essential for Integrin-dependent cell-matrix interactions and regulates glycosaminoglycan synthesis synthesis through YAP https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.08.697362v1

Our paper on tissue stress measurements is now out in Eur. Phys. J. E. rdcu.be/eX59E. Great work from @luanger.bsky.social and @andreasschoenit.bsky.social and collaboration with P. Marcq @pmmh-lab.bsky.social Code: github.com/pmarcq/BISM/ and Examples on github.com/ASmushyCell/...

Excited to share Alison's @alisonkickuth.bsky.social paper from the lab out in @nature.com this week! We uncovered how a mechanical ratchet mechanism drives cytokinesis in early #zebrafish embryos. Read more in this thread 🧵 and at www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🤩 @poldresden.bsky.social @mpi-cbg.de

Congratulations to Byung Ho from the @anne-grapin.bsky.social lab @mpi-cbg.de and the rest of the team to this fantastic publication: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Join us to study developmental cell biology with a focus on cell migration and morphogenesis. More info about our research: www.bischofflab.com Job posting and application details: focalplane.biologists.com/cell-biology... #Science #CellBio #DevBio #AcademicJobs #PhDJobs #PhDPosition #Drosophila

That's some reviewer 3 energy 😂

Interested in the biophysics of organoids? We just published a review in Dev Cell—take a look! dlvr.it/TPyTb8 #Organoids #Biophysics

A winter sunrise over #Cambridge this morning ❄️ 📸 Lloyd Mann

📢 Publication alert #rheology #openscience #microscopy We are pleased to share our latest work on ShearView: a compact, open-source rheometer compatible with optical microscopy, designed to enable synchronized rheology–microscopy measurements.

New paper out! We show how mechanosensitive adherens junction proteins link actomyosin contractility to actin assembly using in vitro reconstitution. Huge congrats to Aurélie Favarin, Rayan Said, & all authors! In Science Advances: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #actin #myosin #mechanobiology