Congrats to MCB's Dan Fletcher & Roberto Zoncu @robzonculab.bsky.social on being named 2026 ASCB Fellows! 👏🎉@ascbiology.bsky.social

American Society for Cell Biology@ascbiology.bsky.social · 2d ago

Congratulations to the 2026 ASCB Fellows! ASCB is proud to recognize 15 scientists whose careers have advanced cell biology through outstanding research, leadership, mentorship & service. Meet the 2026 Fellows: https://www.ascb.org/society-news/fifteen-visionary-scientists-named-2026-ascb-fellows/

New preprint! Surface confinement reshapes CRISPR assay dynamics in ways solution-phase work never reveals. We built a multi-scale framework to capture those effects, then used it to develop SurfCas: a multiplexed bead-based Cas13a assay in a one-pot format. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

We are recruiting participants for endometriosis research. Our lab is studying menstrual blood to develop better diagnostic and therapeutic tools for endometriosis. If you would like to participate, please complete this survey: redcap.berkeley.edu/surveys/?s=8... #Endometriosis #WomenHealth

Congratulations to Carlos (@carlosfng.bsky.social) for his doctoral hooding ceremony! #PhinisheD #PhD

A huge thanks to everyone who participated in the Fletcher Lab Art Show 2026! Your creativity, talent, and passion made this event truly special. Check out the Ground State Ensemble performance: youtu.be/h7E9Nld7mtk?...

Fletcher Lab members brought hand-held microscopes to the @exploratorium.bsky.social outreach event — putting the power to explore the microscopic world directly in people's hands. Huge shoutout to Michael Anne, Zaina, Andres, and Chunzi. ©Exploratorium, photo by Ida Tietgen Høyrup.

Congratulations to Carlos (@carlosfng.bsky.social) for being a recipient of the 2026 Outstanding Graduate Student Peer Mentor Award. Images courtesy of Laure Andrillon.

Congratulations Smiti (@smitim.bsky.social) for passing your qualifying exam! #PhDCandidate

Join us for the 22nd Fletcher Lab Artshow! We’re looking for artists to submit their work and be part of an evening celebrating creativity and community. We will also have the return of the Ground State Ensemble! Art by @chunzi-liu.bsky.social @qb3-berkeley.bsky.social @berkeleymcb.bsky.social

In our new work published in @natbiomedeng.nature.com in collaboration with @theottlab.bsky.social and @doudna-lab.bsky.social, we introduce "interfering" guide RNAs (igRNA) for CRISPR-Cas13a that regulate enzyme activity after activation. Congrats to all the authors! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Programmable kinetic barcoding for multiplexed RNA detection with Cas13a - Nature Biomedical Engineering

A multiplexed RNA detection method exploits crRNA-dependent variability in Cas13a activity on RNA targets for kinetic barcoding and can be used to distinguish among SARS-CoV-2 variants in clinical sam...

nature.com

Happy #internationalwomensday to all of the incredible women, especially those from our lab (past and present). Your curiosity, creativity and determination continue to shape our science and community.

The NTDscope is a portable brightfield, darkfield, and fluorescence microscope used for diagnosing neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). This video shows S. mansoni miracidia. Check out our most recent publication: journals.plos.org/globalpublic...

Check out our latest preprint: LUCas! A direct light control of Cas13 trans-cleavage activity. Congrats to all the authors: Carlos (@carlosfng.bsky.social), Deepak (@deepakkrish.bsky.social), Andres, and Aymeric. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

My choice last week in @science.org www.nature.com/articles/s41... Caitlin E. Cornell, Aymeric Chorlay, Deepak Krishnamurthy, Nicholas R. Martin, Lucia Baldauf & Daniel A. Fletcher

Preprint out now! Cell surfaces are crowded with tall proteins that block immune recognition. We discovered tall binding proteins create “stepping stones” that help short receptors engage, even in dense crowds. A new design principle for #immunotherapy. In memory of Phillip L. Geissler

Overcoming steric inhibition of antibody-dependent phagocytosis with tall adhesions

Macrophages recognize and phagocytose opsonized target cells, including those coated with IgG antibodies. This process relies on binding of IgG to Fcγ receptors (FcγR) expressed on the macrophage surf...

biorxiv.org

☕Cornell et al. show that target cells with low cortical tension induce #macrophages to preferentially trogocytose, or engulf in small fragments, whereas target cells with high #CorticalTension tend towards #phagocytosis. bit.ly/3L7xFIO

Target cell cortical tension regulates macrophage trogocytosis - Nature Cell Biology

Cornell et al. show that target cells with low cortical tension induce macrophages to preferentially trogocytose, or engulf in small fragments, whereas target cells with high cortical tension tend tow...

bit.ly

How does a macrophage decide to eat or simply nibble? Check out our latest paper! You can also read this nice review. Congrats Caitlin for leading this amazing work! www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Target cell cortical tension regulates macrophage trogocytosis - Nature Cell Biology

Cornell et al. show that target cells with low cortical tension induce macrophages to preferentially trogocytose, or engulf in small fragments, whereas target cells with high cortical tension tend tow...

nature.com

Macrophages can engulf targets whole (phagocytosis) or nibble them in small fragments (trogocytosis), a decision controlled by cortical tension (hi favors former, low latter) www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.nature.com/articles/s41... @natcellbio.nature.com @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social

If you are going to #ASCB2025, check out some great talks and posters from our lab members

Happy Thanksgiving! Gratitude today for everyone pushing the frontiers of science in their different roles.

Check out our latest published manuscript: SurFlex microscopy, a new technique to measure molecular flexibility. Congrats to Aymeric, @sid592.bsky.social, @blenackmon.bsky.social, and Andres! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

SurFlex microscopy: Measuring flexibility of surface-tethered biomolecules | PNAS

The flexibility of tethered molecules, such as those bound to biological membranes, is an important property that can influence molecular height, m...

pnas.org

Congratulations Dan for being elected to the National Academy of Medicine! bit.ly/4o0pDj5

Our team is developing portable digital microscopes that harness AI to automatically detect parasitic infections. This shows great potential to help public health programs expand access to affordable disease screening in low-resource settings. Link: tinyurl.com/4bazch67

Check out Siddhansh (@sid592.bsky.social) presentation at the 4th Physics of Life Symposium hosted by the #CZBiohubSF. youtu.be/b7G5wyE6iyo?...

2025 Physics of Life Symposium: Siddhansh Agarwal

YouTube video by Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network

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Happy Postdoc Appreciation Week to all of our postdocs! #PostdocAppreciationWeek

Congratulations Kira for passing your qualifying exam!

Take a look at our newest published article in PLOS NTD: doi.org/10.1371/jour... #schistosomiasis #ML #diagnostics

Multi-contrast machine learning improves schistosomiasis diagnostic performance

Author summary Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease that impacts hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Patients with Schistosoma haematobium shed parasite eggs in their urine, which can...

doi.org

Check out our most recent published paper in @natcomms.nature.com about the effects of cell surface crowding in cell-cell fusion: rdcu.be/ezCOF

Cell surface crowding is a tunable energetic barrier to cell-cell fusion

Nature Communications - Cell-cell fusion is fundamental to physiological processes such as muscle formation and viral infection. Here, the authors show that the proteins embedded on the plasma...

rdcu.be

Check out this talk by one of our amazing postdocs, Deepak! youtu.be/ErE3f5iyPio

2025 Interdisciplinary Science Summit Showcase Talk: Deepak Krishnamurthy

YouTube video by Schmidt Science Fellows

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Had fun at the MBL Physiology Course in Woods Hole! Chunzi, Elizabeth & Kira led creative rotations: • Trogocytosis is a mi(gh)t-y way to transfer • Sync(ytium) or Swim: Which fusogen will reign supreme? • Mucin Impossible: Eat up or get lost