🚀 New preprint on bioRxiv! How do physical boundaries shape collective cell migration? We show that geometric confinement progressively suppresses ERK signaling waves and slows collective epithelial migration by pushing tissues into a mechanically compressed state. 👉🏼 doi.org/10.64898/202...

Geometric confinement regulates ERK signaling dynamics and collective migration

Collective cell migration is a fundamental process in morphogenesis, tissue repair, cancer invasion, and frequently occurs under geometric confinement in vivo. However, how confinement interfaces with...

doi.org

On my way back from Mons - thank you @sgabriele.bsky.social and Nikon for inviting me to this 3D imaging and mechanobiology symposium - very nice and interesting interactions (and I even got the super cool Ti2 Plushie 🔬🤩)

Super excited to continue our collaboration with @sgabriele.bsky.social on the mechanical memory of migrating cells with an SNSF-FNRS Weave grant 🥳 How do cells retain memory of past migration events? We aim to uncover mechanisms & functional implications Background: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our next #ForceTalk is with Prof Sylvain Gabriele @sgabriele.bsky.social exploring "Mechanosensing of epithelial cells: curvature, confinement and memory" 📅 4 March 2026 🕒 15:00 - 16:00 GMT Online & open to all 👉 www.kcl.ac.uk/events/force... #mechanobiology @kingsnmes.bsky.social

Beautiful work from @rouxlab.bsky.social on the mechanical adaptation of epithelial tissues to multiscale curvature 👏🏻 Congrats to @marineluciano.bsky.social and all co-authors !

Roux Lab, Geneva@rouxlab.bsky.social · 7mo ago

@marineluciano.bsky.social recreates intestinal Villi geometry by growing epithelial cells on wavy rolling substrates. Unexpected intrication of curvature effects is observed. Thanks to all! @caterinatomba.bsky.social @sgabriele.bsky.social @sciencesunige.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🚀 Very happy to see our research article “Tube feet dynamics drive adaptation in sea star locomotion” out in PNAS ! 👉🏼 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Fantastic collab with Patrick Flammang (UMONS), Sina Heydari (California State), Stanislav N. Gorb (Kiel Univ), and Eva Kanso (Univ Southern California)

The place to be 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

David Brückner@davidbrueckner.bsky.social · 11mo ago

We're looking for highly motivated candidates for PhD positions in the physics of living systems. Our group uses theoretical physics to understand how cells collectively self-organize. If you're interested, get in touch & check out the Biozentrum PhD Fellowship program, deadline October 12th!

I am delighted to share that I have been awarded the Francqui Research Professorship 🥳 This achievement is above all a collective success and I sincerely thank all the researchers of my lab www.cellmechanobiology.com, past and present, for their incredible work! web.umons.ac.be/fs/fr/sylvai...

Sylvain Gabriele nommé « Professeur de recherche Francqui » pour la période 2025-2028 - Faculté / FS

La Fondation Francqui a sélectionné Sylvain Gabriele, chargé de cours au Département de Chimie de la Faculté des Sciences de l’UMONS, pour le prestigieux mandat de Professeur de recherche Francqui. Ce...

web.umons.ac.be

New preprint! 🚨 We uncover a slow adaptation to stretch that links star-bundling of keratin filaments with nuclear escape from its keratin cage. Led by @tomgolde.bsky.social‬ 🙌 @IBECBarcelona www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Excited to share our new publication in Nature Physics about the mechanical memory of morphology in confined migrating cells by @kyohalie.bsky.social 🥳 Super fun collab with @davidbrueckner.bsky.social and @gcharras.bsky.social 👏🏻 Enjoy the reading www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The actin cortex acts as a mechanical memory of morphology in confined migrating cells - Nature Physics

Cells often navigate through confined spaces. Now it is shown that cells retain a mechanical memory of previous confinement events, which makes them more efficient at migrating through narrow microenv...

nature.com

New preprint out! We show how cellular nematic order can be harnessed to program tissue-wide force fields and guide 3D shape transformations. The tissue morphogenesis logic, now engineered into living, programmable materials. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #ActiveMatter #TissueEngineering

🔬 Excited to share our new publication in Soft Matter about hydrogel dimensionality to investigate mechanobiology. This paper with @marineluciano.bsky.social is part of the themed collection “Pioneering Investigators” - Lab website : www.cellmechanobiology.com 👉🏼 pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

@sarawickstrom.bsky.social 🎤Mechanical regulation of cell states bsky.app/profile/cell...

CellMech2025@cellmech2025.bsky.social · last yr.

🚨 Exciting News! As we count down to #CellMech2025, we’re highlighting our incredible keynote speakers! 🌟  (1/2) Meet @sarawickstrom.bsky.social ! 🧬🔬 Director at MPI for Molecular Biomedicine, she explores how mechanical forces shape and maintain epithelial tissues.

My lab is co-organizing the CellMech2025 conference @cellmech2025.bsky.social. I’m excited to announce that the scientific program is now online! 👉🏼 cellmech2025.org/programme/ There’s still time to submit your abstract for the Scientific Art Contest and compete for prizes !

Have you ever wondered what happens when a sea star carries a backpack full of beads? You can now find out: « Tube feet dynamics drive adaptation in sean star locomotion » www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

Luciano, M., Tomba, C., Roux, A., & Gabriele, S. (2024). How multiscale curvature couples forces to cellular functions. Nature Reviews Physics, #EpithelialMechanicsReveiw

How multiscale curvature couples forces to cellular functions - Nature Reviews Physics

Structure and function of biological tissues are closely intertwined. This Review surveys the challenges in uncovering critical physical elements involved in the mechanical regulation of curved tissue...

nature.com

Paper 1: @sgabriele.bsky.social lab placed cells on wavy substrates (20-50µm) to demonstrate the impact of curvature on cell thickness ➡️ nudging nucleus shape ➡️ revealing mechanoadaptation.

epithelial mechanics fan club@epimechfc.bsky.social · last yr.

Luciano, M., Xue, S. L., De Vos, W. H., Redondo-Morata, L., Surin, M., Lafont, F., ... & Gabriele, S. (2021). Cell monolayers sense curvature by exploiting active mechanics and nuclear mechanoadaptation. Nature Physics, buff.ly/31R16AC #EpithelialMechanics

Happy to share our new publication in @naturematerials.bsky.social on mechanical cell competition! Great collaboration between our CAM team, Chavrier's and Doostmohammadi's. Special congrats @luanger.bsky.social, @andreasschoenit.bsky.social, Siavash Monfared! 🎉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🚨Only a few hours left to register for @cellmech2025.bsky.social, deadline by March 16, 2025 ! 👇🏼

Time is flying, hurry up guys !

CellMech2025@cellmech2025.bsky.social · last yr.

4 more days to submit your abstract!! Don't miss the opportunity to come to Leuven and enjoy 4 days of #Mechanobiology: 🗣️ 15 amazing keynote speakers 🎤 Oral talks and poster sessions 📷 SciArt contest 🍻 Social activities 👉 Submit by 2nd March!! https://buff.ly/3CH94pW

⚠️⏳ There are less than 2 weeks left to submit your abstract!! Hurry up and submit here! 👇🏻 cellmech2025.org/abstracts/

a man is walking down a dirt road in a field

ALT: a man is walking down a dirt road in a field

media.tenor.com

Join us online on Tuesday, February 25, for this exciting DGZ workshop on #celladhesion and #mechanobiology 👇🏼

DGZ.bsky.social@dgz.bsky.social · 2y ago

Next #DGZ Focus Workshop on #CellAdhesion and #Mechanobiology on Feb 25, organized by Andrew Clark and @adacavalcanti.bsky.social - see you there!

Check out our latest paper in Advanced Science 🥳, where we use viscoelastic hydrogels to better understand how spatial confinement and matrix viscoelasticity jointly regulate cell migration: lnkd.in/diRstW2B Great collaboration between UMONS and @giusciccone.bsky.social @manuelsalmeron.bsky.social

The 10th edition of CellMech 2025, which my lab is co-organizing in Sept-Oct ‘25, has officially opened the abstract submission portal! cellmech2025.org We are thrilled to announce our amazing list of keynote speakers, who will help us to make this conference a major event in mechanobiology!

Thrilled to share our new preprint on detecting the nematic orientation field on surfaces of 3D multicellular systems! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Huge thanks to all authors: @tobyandrews.bsky.social,Joe Pollard, @rashmi-priya.bsky.social, @yap-lab.bsky.social &Richard Morris Any 3D systems?👇

Yamini @yamini-ravichan.bsky.social changed the topology of Hydra to show that actin orientational defects of Hydra induce the full program of head regeneration: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Mechanics controls development! Thanks to Dan Pearce, Karsten Kruse, Matthias Vogg & Brigitte Galliot.

And here is pre-print 2/2! *HYDRA: HYdrogel Dispensing with Robotic Automation* - a scalable solution for drug testing. Great work by 1st author @eloisa_torchia and team with help from the labs of @sgabriele.bsky.social Elisa Cimetta and Johan Lind biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

HYDRA: HYdrogel Dispensing with Robotic Automation for high throughput drug testing

The poor predictivity of traditional cell culture platforms hampers drug research and development efficiency. While organoids and organs-on-chip mitigate this problem by introducing biomimetic in-vitr...

biorxiv.org

Really looking forward to visit the Salmeron’s lab at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia @ibecbarcelona.eu at Barcelona tomorrow ! Thanks to @manuelsalmeron.bsky.social and @giusciccone.bsky.social for their kind invitation !

Season’s greetings and happy holidays from the Mechanobiology & Biomaterials group at the University of Mons

Really bummed to have missed ASCB this year due to some last-minute circumstances, but excited that our manuscript describing an IF disassembly tool will (hopefully) be posted soon. Here's a movie of vimentin color-coded by orientation.