Amir Porat
@amirporat.bsky.social
Red sea pedestrian. Herchel Smith Postdoctoral Fellow @slcuplants.bsky.social 🌱
Heroic effort by @roni-kemp.bsky.social!
Meroz Lab@merozlab.bsky.social · 2d ago🌱🪩 Optical illusions in plants? New paper @pnas.org: Nonlinear distributed sensing of light patterns leads to perceptual distortions in plants, or any distributed system tinyurl.com/5x79sxaj 📽️ opposing lights cancel, plant grows toward weaker light 🤩 R Kempinski, @amirporat.bsky.social, M Rivière
Live confocal imagining of cellular touch responses upon local quantifiable mechanical stimulation in plant cells https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.10.750548v1
Cell Geometry and Junction Arrangement Define the Mechanical Robustness of Plant Tissues https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.07.749888v1
🌱 Our new paper about growth-derived mechanical conflicts in gynoecium and fruit morphogenesis is now out @currentbiology.bsky.social 🎉Congrats to Binghan Wang and all authors. 📄https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(26)01086-9 @irbv.bsky.social @umontreal-en.bsky.social
✨ Paper spotlight ✨ (🧵 1/7) Proprioception drives tension wood formation for autotropic straightening and postural control in trees nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Very happy to share that our work "Growth directions and stiffness across cell layers determine whether tissues stay smooth or buckle" is now out @currentbiology.bsky.social www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Special thanks to my postdoctoral mentor @roederlab.bsky.social and all the authors!
Growth directions and stiffness across cell layers determine whether tissues stay smooth or buckle
Nature exhibits organs of various shapes and forms, ranging from smooth to undulated morphologies. How cells coordinate their growth to produce smooth…
sciencedirect.com
Happy to share our new study @ijmonod.bsky.social on how surface curvature shapes multicellular organization and function. How curvature controls tissue chirality, patterns distinct architectures, and influences myogenic differentiation? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
New preprint! We found an active wetting transition in cell aggregates. We obtain an active Young-Dupré condition, which allows us to capture states of partial and complete wetting. With group members MJ Franco-Oñate and Hanno Hennighausen! arxiv.org/abs/2608.28912
Our article “Time-dependent bistability leads to critical slowing down during floral transition in Arabidopsis” is now published in @natcomms.nature.com. Link: rdcu.be/fBZ3S. What an exciting collaboration with the Coupland lab! @mpipz.bsky.social @ceplas.bsky.social #PlantDevelopment #criticality
"The central challenge is no longer building models that reproduce biological behavior, but building models from which causal structure can be inferred." Very sensible paper about not just throwing everything into your simulation or model. arxiv.org/abs/2608.06998
Simulating is not always understanding: When model complexity obscures biology
In cell biology, computational models of biological systems range from minimal representations with a handful of parameters to whole-cell simulations tracking thousands of molecular species across a c...
arxiv.org
Out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social the improved version of our paper! I am very proud of this work with @ckirchhelle.bsky.social, @nathan-german.bsky.social, Annamaria Kiss, @moritznowack.bsky.social and others! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Plant cells at the organ surface use mechanical cues to activate a specific growth-control program
During morphogenesis of multicellular organs, cells in distinct positions need to meet specific functional requirements to form the appropriate tissue…
sciencedirect.com
📢 We’re hiring in APPLIED MATHEMATICS at the OXFORD UNIVERSITY Mathematical Institute. We seek candidates using modern theoretical and computational methods to study physical, biological, medical and information sciences. Deadline: 28 Sept. Info: www.maths.ox.ac.uk/node/81913 #AppliedMath
Associate Professor (or Professorship) in Applied Mathematics | Mathematical Institute
maths.ox.ac.uk
Plant performance involves physical processes - from mechanical load bearing and water transport to heat, light, and gas diffusion. Finite-element modeling combined with microCT-imaging allows linking cell-scale architectural details to organ-scale function. Review article: doi.org/10.1111/tpj....
Our new Nat Plants paper introduces WALLΦ, a genetically encoded cell wall pH sensor, and reveals that root developmental zonation is independent of local cell wall pH. Wall pH supports growth at the organ level, but local growth patterns are governed by other mechanisms. doi.org/10.1038/s414...
Now in @jxbotany.bsky.social ! Check out our opinion piece on Atomic Force Microscopy #afm in Plant Biomechanic Research: A powerful tool that needs careful handling, interpretation & more research! @Klaus Harter, @moscabiomeclab.bsky.social at @zmbp-tuebingen.bsky.social doi.org/10.1093/jxb/...
Validate User
doi.org
New OA Letter: "Root developmental zonation is independent of cell wall pH" rdcu.be/fu1LZ A cell wall-anchored pH sensor shows that the cell elongation profile does not correlate with cell wall acidification in Arabidopsis roots. #PlantScience
Why do primary plant tissues hold their shape? We are told it's because of turgor pressure—but how does that work mechanically? We investigated how pressurized cylindrical structures support themselves. Read here: doi.org/10.1039/d6sm... Funded by @hfspo.bsky.social www.plantbiomechanics.net
🍀🔬 Force-responsive symmetric cell divisions orient stomata along global tissue axes @pnas.org from Andrew Muroyama's lab. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Ever stretch a plastic bag until it wrinkled? Keeping a thin sheet flat while it rapidly expands is surprisingly difficult. So how do growing plant leaves remain flat as they rapidly grow? Check out our new @currentbiology.bsky.social review, How to Grow a Flat Leaf www.cell.com/current-biol...
How to grow a flat leaf
Peng et al. review mechanisms driving lamina expansion, including gene expression, auxin-mediated proliferation, and microtubule-directed growth, linking disrupted coordination to morphological defect...
cell.com
✨ Mark your calendars! ✨ The Plant Computational Biology Workshop 🌱💻 is back—10th edition! 🎉 Sept 7–11 | Lyon, France | FREE ✓ Registration mandatory Limited to 70 researchers (spots filling fast!) Learn more & Register : pcbw.inria.fr
Excited to share that our work on single-nucleus RNA-seq of the shoot apical meristem — the shoot stem cell niche — has found a home. #Plantascience #scRNAseq #stemcells www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Single-nucleus transcriptomics resolves multiple fate dynamics between inflorescence meristem and primary stem
snRNA-seq reveals shoot stem cell heterogeneity and traces their differentiation into primary stem cell types.
science.org
Congratulations to the Wolf Prize Laureates! Prof. Caroline Dean, Prof. Venkatesan Sundaresan, Prof. Elliot M. Meyerowitz, Prof. Brian J.Staskawicz, Prof. Jonathan D.G Jones, and Prof. Jeff Dangl.
🍃 Growing a flat leaf 🍃 Check out our new review to learn how plants generate, maintain, and modulate flatness. A pleasure to put this together with Alexis De Carufel, Elvis Branchini, in collaboration with Marja Timmermans 🙏 👉 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Fresh off the press! Jeongeun and Yoël’s work on the lightning-fast actuation of the Venus flytrap. 🪴⚡ No muscles. No nerves. So what powers the trap? Cutting the trap suppresses its mechanical amplifier, the snap-through instability, and reveals the active motion. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
New research in Science reveals that the Venus flytrap's snap is triggered by a rapid softening of the epidermal cell walls, uncovering the physical mechanism behind this remarkable movement. Learn more in this week's issue: https://scim.ag/4fXQ9sn
What is an edge? Why is this geometrical domain so crucial during plant morphogenesis? Read our review, co-written with Antoine Chevalier and @ckirchhelle.bsky.social to find out! authors.elsevier.com/c/1nAnf4tPF4...
🍀🔬 Temporal changes in surface tension guide microtubule organization and accurate asymmetric division of Arabidopsis zygotes @natcomms.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Mechanical forces & cell shape guide how plant stomata form🥬👄 @leoserra.bsky.social & Euan Smithers from @robinsonsci.bsky.social's team uncover how the interplay between cell shape & mechanical stress influences the orientation of stomata doi.org/10.1016/j.ce... www.slcu.cam.ac.uk/news/mechani...
