Excited to share our latest preprint! 🧬 Coiled coils are essential structural motifs in proteins but how do they move over time? Using high-speed AFM and MD simulations, we developed a quantitative framework to describe the dynamics of coiled coils in bacterial and human DNA repair complexes.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Extracellular Matrix Stiffness Controls Actin Cytoskeletal Tension

How can we record the mechanical activity of cells in three dimensions? Our DNA force-history probes convert transient piconewton forces into persistent fluorescent signals, revealing spheroid activity, cellular protrusions, and migration tracks in a 3D matrix. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Jammed interconnected bilayer emulsions as 3D-printable biological tissue mimics www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Jammed interconnected bilayer emulsions as 3D-printable biological tissue mimics - Nature Materials

The scalable formation of jammed interconnected bilayer emulsions provides a platform for replicating structural and functional properties of biological tissues.

nature.com

A minimal physical model of adhesion-dependent protrusion explains confined haptotaxis and oscillatory cell migration www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

We are happy to present a new paper on the sequence dependence of 🧬 replication timing in the cell cycle. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧵 1/6

Using Deep Learning to predict replication timing reveals baseline control of genomic DNA sequence

Human DNA replicates according to a precise schedule: certain regions are replicated early, while others replicate later in the cell cycle. The DNA sequence and the epigenome are both indicative for r...

biorxiv.org

Reconstitution of actomyosin networks in cell-sized liposomes dissects distinct mechanisms of membrane blebbing and symmetry breaking | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Reconstitution of actomyosin networks in cell-sized liposomes dissects distinct mechanisms of membrane blebbing and symmetry breaking

Actin network organization dictates how and where membrane blebs form, revealed through reconstitution and simulations.

science.org

How can morphogenesis produce complex outcomes, reproducibly? 🤔 We show: remodeling & growth allow buffering against noise & prevent elastic coarsening Led by Nico Romeo, in collab w/ @npmitchell.bsky.social 👉 arxiv.org/abs/2607.23907

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Layered helical order reveals assembly states in podosome actin networks

Last week was a good week for collaborative paper submissions that I have loved being a part of. Check out this bioRxiv preprint with the Labs of Nuris Figueroa and Frank Vernerey at CU Boulder on Stress induced mechanical memory in respiratory mucus. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Stress-Induced Mechanical Memory in Respiratory Mucus: Anisotropy, Network Reorganization, and Directional Transport

Mucus transport is essential for lung health, as ciliated cells constantly propel mucus outward to clear bacteria, viruses, and particles. This defense relies on a material that must be elastic enough...

biorxiv.org

Nuclear size and physical properties of the nucleoplasm are determined by colloid osmotic pressure at the nuclear envelope https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.21.739918v1

For our first live cell imaging lab of #IALSJanelia 2026, we're exploring the migratory behavior of neutrophil-like HL60 cells. Confocal microscopy by @anjanja1024.bsky.social 🔬

Michaud, @andrewgoryachev.bsky.social, von Dassow, @xenresearchcenter.bsky.social et al. identify a versatile cortical pattern-forming circuit based on #Rho, F-#actin, Ect2, & RGA-3/4 rupress.org/jcb/article/... 📕 In "Collective Behaviors and Self-Organization in Cells" rupress.org/jcb/collecti...

Our work on the mechanoresponsiveness of actin is out! While plant microtubules have been extensively studied for their role in mechanobiology, actin has very much been ignored. Here we show that actin responds to cellular deformations within minutes and observed it in Marchantia and Arabidopsis!

bioRxiv Plant Bio@biorxiv-plants.bsky.social · 3w ago

Plant actin networks are rapid mechano-adaptive scaffolds https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.16.738884v1

How do you build different crystal structures from the same nanoscale building block? That's the question we set out to answer in our latest work. We designed a DNA origami tetrahedron that can self-assemble into three distinct crystal lattices:diamond cubic, hexagonal diamond and the ice0.

🧪 @aicjanelia.bsky.social and @scientistrachel.bsky.social have just published a new quantitative tool, OpticalFlow3D, for tracking amorphous motion in 3D. Try it out and let us know what you think! tinyurl.com/OpticalFlow3D

Thrilled to share our new paper on cell extrusion. A beautiful study with a tremendous amount of data, led by the fantastic @fanny-wodrascka.bsky.social ! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Out Now! Self-generated hydrogel ejects bacterial cells for localized biofilm dispersion #MicroSky

Self-generated hydrogel ejects bacterial cells for localized biofilm dispersion

Nature Microbiology, Published online: 07 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41564-026-02413-4Bacillus subtilis biofilms locally disperse by ejecting motile cells through osmotic pressure generated by their poly-γ-glutamic acid hydrogel, a mechanism resembling that through which Cnidaria eject nematocysts.

go.nature.com

On our 250th birthday, celebrating the contribution of immigrants and international collaboration —46% of people with doctoral-level degrees working in US science and engineering fields are foreign-born

📣 Hear! Hear! 🦋 Behold this Bluetorial on a cool paper written with my PhD student Nathaniel Wesnak 🧪 If you want to dive into the rabbit hole of lipid flop-flop and its description as a stochastic process—here’s your TEASER TRAILER on some flippin’ awesome work: doi.org/10.1063/5.03... 1/26

Stochastic process description of lipid flip-flop

Since lipid bilayers are self-assembled macroscopic aggregates, their constituent lipid molecules can spontaneously transition between the two leaflets. This so

doi.org

Sometimes I like doing "random" expts. It's how I learn new things n know the limit of my system. Optogenetics is not too trivial in 🐸, but here is an example of it applied to the rear end 🔴 of a macrophage expressing Opto-Ras. It's strong enough to reverse the cell's direction. #FluorescenceFriday

Very excited to be sharing our new paper, just out in Nature Cell Biology! The big question we investigate: How do migrating cells put their front 🔴 and back 🔵 in the right place?

Microtubules (green) fighting retrograde actin flow (magenta) in a neuronal growth cone videoed through a TIRF microscope. #CellBiology

💥 🚀 New preprint! 🎉🥳 How do hundreds of organelles organize themselves into near-perfect patterns inside a cell, without a blueprint? We dive deep into how basal bodies (BBs) self-organize in MCCs - and how actin actively tunes their dynamics into order 🍪 🧵👇 (1/17)

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 🙏

Tissue rigidity phase transition shapes morphogen gradients - Nature Cell Biology

Autorino et al. report a feedback loop between Nodal signalling and tissue phase transitions in zebrafish embryos. Nodal alters adhesion, triggering tissue rigidification and reduced porosity, which l...

nature.com

Nicoletta Petridou@nicolettapetridou.bsky.social · last yr.

Here our latest work on how morphogens trigger tissue phase transitions to tune their own length-scales and time-scales - An exciting collaboration with @zhvas.bsky.social @dianakhorom.bsky.social Bernat Corominas-Murtra and heroic experiments by the incredible @cami-autorino.bsky.social @embl.org

Happy #FluorescenceFriday. I feel so lucky to get to work with these weird and curious primary macrophages from 🐸. They exhibit myriad different morphologies and behaviours, including spinning endlessly and stationary, kinda like progenitor cells under compression from 🐟. Also actomyosin is strong!

In truly excellent timing, we found out this week that the class of 2026 has hit a record FAFSA completion rate. @billdebaun.bsky.social has all the details www.ncan.org/Web/News/Cla...

Class of 2026 Sets All-Time High FAFSA Completion Record

The high school class of 2026 has set an all time high FAFSA completion rate, as of May 1. Then only question now is by how much will we break the record.

ncan.org

Eddy Conroy@econroy.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Turns out it is possible to make financial aid simpler for students! The FAFSA is working, more students are applying for and qualifying to college, and qualifying for aid. @donmoyn.bsky.social was nice enough to have me guest author for Can We Still Govern donmoynihan.substack.com/p/good-news-...

This mesmerizing timelapse captures the nonstop motion inside an animal cell. Red/orange streaks are the growing ends of microtubules, tiny “highways” that can rapidly assemble and disassemble to move proteins & other molecules within the cell. 📸: Andy Moore, HHMI’s Janelia Research Campus

T Cells Tear Apart Confining Extracellular Matrix Via a Breaststroke-like Motion to Generate Migration Paths www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

What membrane properties do cells maintain through regulation of lipid metabolism? In a new paper, we identify intrinsic curvature stress as one such parameter and show how different (eukaryotic) cell types employ different lipids to do that www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Active regulation of intrinsic curvature by eukaryotic phospholipid metabolism

Cells maintain membrane function by actively balancing the molecular shape of their lipids. Milshteyn et al. find that, when subjected to high hydrostatic pressure, yeast and human cells, but not bact...

cell.com