Freaking finally! A massive compilation of data that sat on various desks for almost a decade is finally out. On the positive side, gave me time to learn expansion microscopy and make Fig 1 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Emergent metabolic parasitism driven by organelle sequestration

Chloroplast-stealing ciliates evolve, increasing reliance on their prey for all aspects of metabolism, including photosynthesis.

science.org

Integration and regulation of stolen organelles in a marine protist academic.oup.com/ismej/advanc... #jcampubs

Integration and regulation of stolen organelles in a marine protist

Abstract. Chloroplast-stealing (a.k.a., “kleptoplastidic”) plankton transiently obtain and integrate prey metabolic machinery into their own cells. To do s

academic.oup.com

Microscopy Nodes 3.1 is out for Blender 5.2! 🎉 This has cool new features for conditional masking, working with even larger data (regional upscaling), and data manipulation! Watch the new youtube tutorials that explain the features: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

So happy to share our new paper out now in @natmicrobiol.nature.com! We establish Pirsonia-Coscinodiscus as a model pathosystem and uncover how this tiny parasite infects and kills bloom-forming marine diatoms 🌊🦠 rdcu.be/fuQyF

Whupwhup! Amazing to have you close by again, looking forward to see what you’ll be up to! 🌱🫖

Jana Helsen@helsenjana.bsky.social · last mo.

I am starting my lab at the University of Geneva next January! Incredibly excited to soon be joining the MOCEL department as an Asst. Professor. The lab will use evolutionary cell biology to study chromosomes, centromeres & speciation 🧬🔬🌱 Intrigued, want to join or collaborate? 🔗 helsenlab.org

Thank you for hosting us @luisjagago.bsky.social! Looking forward to all the fantastic cultures and some expansion shenanigans!

Luis Javier Galindo@luisjagago.bsky.social · last mo.

In September we will have the pleasure of hosting Karla and @fmikus.bsky.social from the labs of @dudinlab.bsky.social and @gautamdey.bsky.social. If you are around Granada please join us for their talk! They will present ExÂME, an incredible initiative to build a 3D atlas of protists diversity!

🚨JOB ALERT🚨 We're seeking technicians and postdocs interested in working on decrypting plant-fungal communication as part of a "Fungalphabet" MURI team! (see RFP language below) Official job ads to follow, but please get in touch with me if this sounds like you or someone you know!

I am thrilled to share my PhD work with @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social @embl.org: www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/... A fun collaboration with Bernat Corominas-Murtra, Adrián Aguirre-Tamaral, @bart-smeets.bsky.social , Jef Vanghel and Tom Belpaire! Read the story in the comments below ⤵️

Tiny unicellular #eukaryotes, big #biomaterial inspiration. Excited to share our Nature Communications study showing that tintinnid ciliates build their chemical- and heat-resistant shells from self-assembling proteins we call Tintinnidorins. doi.org/10.1038/s414... #protistsonsky 1/3

Our beautiful mosaic embryo made it to the cover! 🔥

Nicoletta Petridou@nicolettapetridou.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A very pleasant surprise to see that we got the cover for this paper 🥳 @natphys.nature.com

Congratulations to Gautam Dey (EMBL) and Omaya Dudin (University of Geneva) for being awarded the EMBO Gold Medal 2026 in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the #LifeSciences in Europe! 🧪 https://www.embo.org/press-releases/embo-gold-medal-2026-awarded-to-gautam-dey-and-omaya-dudin/

⚡ Our paper is now out in @natphys.nature.com ! This version now includes a detailed molecular characterisation of the optogenetic perturbations, new insights on the relevance of tricellular junctions for tissue morphology, and beautiful light-sheet timelapses. 🔬 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Adhesion-driven rigidity transition decoupled from density-driven jamming triggers epithelial organization in embryonic tissues - Nature Physics

Tissue phase transitions are key to morphogenesis. Now adhesion-driven rigidification is identified as key to epithelial organization but only if uncoupled from density-driven jamming.

nature.com

Laura Rustarazo-Calvo@laura-rustarazo.bsky.social · last yr.

🎉 Excited to share our new work: “Adhesion-driven tissue rigidification triggers epithelial cell polarity”, now on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social ! A huge thank you to @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social, Bernat, @crisp-c.bsky.social, Adrián, and everyone involved! 🙌 🧵⤵️

Multinucleate cells challenge deeply-held assumptions about complexity, ecological success and evolution. Postdoc extraordinaire and gifted writer @mrosjac.bsky.social tackles this subject with aplomb - tell us what you think! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @currentbiology.bsky.social

Multinucleation as a recurring evolutionary strategy for scaling and plasticity

Multinucleate cells — single cells containing multiple nuclei in a shared cytoplasm — are found across the eukaryotic tree of life. Having evolved ind…

sciencedirect.com

💫 Our paper is now published at @natcellbio.nature.com! So excited about this work done during my PhD at @embl.org in the group of @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social along with our great collaborators! 🐟🎉

Nicoletta Petridou@nicolettapetridou.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Glad to see this out in its final form! www.nature.com/articles/s41... What changed since the preprint? Wonderful experiments disentangling the effect of receptor binding vs tissue porosity on Nodal diffusion, plus one of the smoothest review experiences! Thanks @natcellbio.nature.com & reviewers 🙏

🌊 Exciting #PhDPosition in #PlanktonEcology at the University of Koblenz, Germany! Work on marine protists with a mix of 🔬 wet lab and 💻 bioinformatics in a 3-year, 60% position. 📅 Apply by 20 May 2026 Please repost/share 🙌 Link: tinyurl.com/yu27knau #Protists #MicrobialEcology #PhD #Ecology

Our ExM Atlas of eukaryotes is moving along with more and more images coming in - some featured in nature last month! Culture we’re provided by @ccapoban.bsky.social & Julius Lukeš during visits last year www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

See the intricate worlds of parasites and algae — March’s best science images

The month’s sharpest science shots, selected by Nature’s photo team.

nature.com

Last few places left! www.ccap.ac.uk/index.php/algaculture2026/

The next of our Special Guest Presenters on CCAP’s online training course later this month is Dr Hiral Shah. Dr Shah's talk is entitled "Exploring cytoskeletal diversity across eukaryotes using expansion microscopy" See the link below for course details 👇 www.ccap.ac.uk/index.php/algaculture2026/

Attending Protistology Open? Check out @nicolecoots.bsky.social & I's ISOP-sponsored symposium "The Symbiotic Continuum across the Tree of Life" (April 20th @ 11 AM)! We have an amazing lineup of speakers including Ondřej Pomahač, @mixotrophe.bsky.social, & Gillian Gile #ProtistsOnSky #Symbiosis

I am extremely excited that my first first-author paper from my PhD is finally out 😆!! We developed a new CLEM workflow to measure lipid densities at the nanoscale. So if you are into lipids and super-resolution imaging approaches, this one is for you: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Visualizing suborganellar lipid distribution using correlative light and electron microscopy - Nature Cell Biology

Lennartz et al. introduce a correlative light and electron microscopy workflow, Lipid-CLEM, combining near-native lipid probes and on-section labelling via click chemistry. Lipid-CLEM quantitatively a...

nature.com

It’s incredibly hard to study lipids in biological membranes on the nanoscale. You need near-perfect information on both membrane ultrastructure and lipid density. Lipid-CLEM, now out in @natcellbio.nature.com brought to you by @mathilda95.bsky.social changes that: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Excited to announce I’m starting a new lab at @gmivienna.bsky.social (Vienna BioCentre) in Sept 2026 We study how carbon fixation is inherited and maintained in algae using cryo-ET, imaging, environmental sampling&more Looking for people who want to build the lab together, get in touch! #teamtomo

And the best parts about it - it's not over! More and more data is coming out from #TREC and the science will be fantastic to engage with. And my truck? Well it's an #EMBL facility open to the scientific community. If you're interested have a look www.embl.org/groups/mobil... or reach out

@embl.org at its best: collaborative, open, transformative, and just the right amount of crazy. Dreaming of mechanistic cell biology *in the natural environment*? Dream no more, rent the AML. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... www.youtube.com/watch?v=jepb... #WeFreezeOnTheBeach #ProtistsOnSky 🦠🌍🧪

Excited to share our new review in @dev-journal.bsky.social on tissue phase transitions during development! @karengrace12.bsky.social @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social 🔗 doi.org/10.1242/dev....

Tissue phase transitions in development: more than just mechanics

Summary: Tissue material phase transitions are classically thought to regulate tissue deformability. This Review emphasises their unexpected roles in directly influencing growth and patterning signall...

doi.org

The origin of eukaryotic cells continues to be one of the greatest mysteries in biology. EMBL Grenoble is excited to welcome Florian Wollweber, who will use cutting-edge imaging techniques to study Asgard archaea — microbes closely related to our earliest ancestors. 🦠🔬 www.embl.org/news/people-...

It was a really fun couple of weeks in the lab ! I also very much enjoyed being in full handle of the #Zeiss 3Dsim scope provided generously for us to explore the various samples.

Felix Mikus@fmikus.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Over the last two weeks the Dudin Lab expanded two-fold and it’s been a blast! We are hosting a group of amazing visitors that stopped by with their own species and samples to get started with expansion microscopy. It was a ton of fun, very much looking forward to pictures to come ❤️ #ExpandThemAll

Over the last two weeks the Dudin Lab expanded two-fold and it’s been a blast! We are hosting a group of amazing visitors that stopped by with their own species and samples to get started with expansion microscopy. It was a ton of fun, very much looking forward to pictures to come ❤️ #ExpandThemAll

🔬🔦Our Imaging spotlight from @hiralshah.bsky.social & team highlights their U-ExM atlas of planktonic eukaryotes, including details on how you can explore this wonderful resource. Plus, check out Hiral’s top tips on getting started with expansion microscopy. focalplane.biologists.com/2026/01/20/i...

Imaging spotlight: U-ExM atlas of microbial eukaryotes - FocalPlane

Imaging spotlight: U-ExM atlas of microbial eukaryotes - News

focalplane.biologists.com

On this day in 2021, I landed in a snowy, lockdown-silenced Heidelberg to start my lab. 5 years later we are a force to reckon with in our field, and the first generation are striking out on their own. I couldn’t be more proud, & grateful to them and our wonderful collaborators around the world 🌍 🧪