COST Action PlantWallK

@plantwallk.org

PlantWallK | COST Action CA24116 🇪🇺 Plant cell walls across scales Methods • Imaging • Data Network, training, STSMs & meetings www.plantwallk.com Cover: E. Tylová

Plant cell walls aren’t rigid; they’re dynamic materials that adapt during growth, development, and environmental change. Understanding them boosts crop resilience, enables sustainable biomaterials, and deepens our knowledge of #PlantBiology. What aspect of the plant cell wall fascinates you most?

Owing to osmotic loss of water from the vacuole, the living protoplast of a plant cell is detached from the cell wall during plasmolysis. This process is induced by hypertonic salt or sugar solutions. A network‐like structure, surrounded by the plasma membrane, remains closely attached to the cell wall. Image credit: Krishna satya 333, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

📢 Two postdoc positions available in @mc-caillaud.bsky.social's group (RDP lab, ENS de Lyon), part of an ERC Consolidator. Project: how plant cells orient their division, combining cell biology, molecular genetics, and mechanical modelling. 📅 Deadline: 1 Oct 26 | Start: Nov 26 onwards Details 🧵👇

Recruitment flyer for two postdoc-funded positions in Marie-Cécile Caillaud's group (RDP laboratory, ENS de Lyon, France). Across the top run six scientific images: a line drawing of an Arabidopsis seedling with roots; a 3D digital reconstruction of a shoot apical meristem with orange and purple sectors marking cell lineages; a confocal microscopy image of plant tissue with green cell outlines and red/orange fluorescent nuclei; two paired 3D cell models in orange/green and yellow/purple showing division plane geometry; and a fluorescence microscopy image of a dividing cell with yellow microtubule-like structures and cyan nuclei on a dark background. Below, the title reads "Two Postdoc-funded positions" with an ERC logo, followed by "Deadline: 1st of Oct 2026" and "Starting date: Nov 2026 and onwards" in a bordered box. The body text is organised into sections: PROJECT (describing research into how plant cells orient their division, combining cell biology, molecular genetics, and multiscale mechanical modelling, with a link to the team website), CANDIDATE (looking for motivated candidates with a strong publication record, prior expertise in plant cell biology or biophysics as a plus, working language English), ENVIRONMENT (describing the ERC Consolidator project, the RDP laboratory hosted at ENS de Lyon, an international and gender-balanced working environment, and the city of Lyon), and RECENT PUBLICATIONS (three pinned references: Goldy et al. 2026 in Science Advances, Gascon et al. 2025 in Current Biology, and Lebecq et al. 2023 in Science Advances). An envelope icon box at the bottom right gives instructions to send a single PDF (cover letter, short summary of previous research, CV with publications, and contact details for two to three referees) to marie-cecile.caillaud@ens-lyon.fr.

📢 PlantWallK WG2 Webinar — "Image & Data Analysis" Join us for an introduction to AI for image processing, with two talks: 🔹 Tereza Belinova (ISTA) — From Pixels to Patterns 🔹 Beatriz Serrano-Solano (EMBL Heidelberg) — AI4Life Highlights 🔹 Hosted by @stephanevrg.bsky.social 📅 Fri 7 Aug, 14:00 CEST

Flyer for the PlantWallK WG2 Image and Data Analysis Webinar, COST Action CA24116, on a pale green background. Top left shows the grey COST Action "European Cooperation in Science and Technology" logo; top right shows the PlantWallK logo, a stylised green leaf built from geometric cell-wall-like facets, above the text "PlantWallK, COST Action 24116". Below, in green, "COST ACTION CA24116 – Advancing Plant Cell Wall Knowledge", followed by a dark green banner reading "WG2: Image & Data Analysis Webinar". Introductory text explains that the webinar offers an introduction to AI for image processing for action members. A shaded date bar reads "Friday, August 7th – 2:00 PM (CEST) | Duration: ~1h30". Under "WEBINAR PROGRAM", two white cards list the talks: "From Pixels to Patterns: Image Analysis Essentials in the World of AI" by Tereza Belinova (Imaging and Optics Facility, Institute of Science and Technology Austria, ISTA), and "AI4Life Highlights" by Beatriz Serrano-Solano (Euro-BioImaging ERIC Bio-Hub, EMBL Heidelberg). A pale yellow box notes that attendance is reserved for COST Action members, with the registration link to follow via COST channels, and that the session will be recorded for members. A final green-bordered box invites those not yet part of the PlantWallK network to join at www.plantwallk.org/#join.

A great way to close the #PlantWallK26 days in Prague! The EPCC satellite meeting wrapped up yesterday with a full day of scientific presentations and stimulating discussions on plant cytoskeleton. Many thanks to all contributors and participants, it was a pleasure to see the community in action.

Group photograph of EPCC satellite meeting participants, taken on 27 May 2026 in the entrance hall of a classical university building in Prague. Approximately forty attendees are arranged across several steps of a grand stone staircase, facing the camera. A small sign reading "EPCC — May 27.5.2026, Prague" is held at the front of the group.

☀️ Good morning from Prague! Day 2 of #PlantWallK26 is underway! Hendrik Küpper (Czech Academy of Sciences) opens with a powerful toolkit: synchrotron X-ray techniques that can map where metals are in plant cells and even reveal what chemical form they are in.

Projected slide titled “X-ray spectroscopy on biological samples — Typical process scheme from plant to publication with µXANES tomography” showing the workflow from plant growth to synchrotron analysis, with steps attributed to the biology PI group, synchrotron staff, or both. Hendrik Küpper stands at the podium on the right.