@juliaeckert
@dfg.de Walter Benjamin Fellow & Postdoctoral Researcher @yap-lab.bsky.social | Co-organizer @epimechfc.bsky.social | Mechanobiology - Cell & Tissue Mechanics - Soft Matter Physics - Image Analysis 👉 https://julia-eckert.github.io
New paper from the lab led by @ericmulhall.bsky.social addresses how PIEZO1 and PIEZO2 are tuned to different types mechanical forces. From nanometer-scale super-resolution microscopy to in vivo experiments, links single-molecule observations to physiological function.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
🚨 New paper from our lab just published in Nature🚨
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Discover how 🌱 tumour formation is shaped by tissue context from the very beginning. Cancer is not driven by genetics alone
✨Fantastic team led by Greta Skrupskelyte, Eduardo Rojo, @hariajith.bsky.social
Highlighting preprint stories from within the preLights community 📽️
Here, Teodora narrates her preprint showing that functional decline in the ageing retinal epithelium results from a change in the mechanical balance of the tissue due to natural cell loss!
#Short ⬇️
www.youtube.com/shorts/CWYRX...
New preprint out!
In this study, we introduce NanoFLex, a strategy that combines #HaloTag variants with #nanobodies -based immunolabeling to enable rapid, OneStep-IF #lifetime #multiplexing. Possible due to SmartSecondaries fused to #HaloTag from @nanotag.bsky.social: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Riedel, L., Wössner, V., Kempf, D., Ziebert, F., Bastian, P., & Schwarz, U. S. (2025). The positioning of stress fibers in contractile cells minimizes internal mechanical stress. Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 195, 105950. #EpithelialMechanics
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Yang, H., Meyer, F., Huang, S., Yang, L., Lungu, C., Olayioye, M. A., Buehler, M. J., & Guo, M. (2024). Learning collective cell migratory dynamics from a static snapshot with graph neural networks. PRX Life 2, 043010. #EpithelialMechanics
doi.org/10.1103/PRXL...
Can contractile forces that internalize cells and rearrange tissues cause harm? They can, if not mitigated. We show that built-in high stretchability of the extraembryonic cells protects gastrulating Drosophila embryo from being ripped apart. (1/9) doi.org/10.64898/202...
Matteo Ciarchi, Andriy Goychuk, Erwin Frey: Active fluctuations induce buckling of living surfaces https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.24272 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.24272 https://arxiv.org/html/2602.24272
An excellent summary of 3D Traction Force Microscopy!
Check out this @epimechfc.bsky.social thread by @barrasa-fano.bsky.social. 👇
Happy to share a write-up of our recent publication @natcomms.nature.com demonstrating
how circumferential actomyosin-driven endothelial cell contractions constrict vessel diameter, providing insights into mechanisms of normal vessel remodelling and CCM.
www.bdr.riken.jp/en/news/rese...
Da Gao, Alexander Mietke, Rui Ma: Confinement-Induced Symmetry Breaking of Active Surfaces https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.21519 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.21519 https://arxiv.org/html/2602.21519
How to make a 4-cell square ascidian embryo? Cytoplasmic pulling rotates centrosomes, cortical forces lock the plane.
Corentin Mollier & Shivani Dharmadhikari highlight a #preprint from Silvia Caballero-Mancebo & team @rdumollard.bsky.social
#preLight ⬇️
prelights.biologists.com/highlights/c...
New paper out! In this project, we focused on the question how tissue mechanics is spatially controlled during development. We show that the GPCR ligand Fog acts as a “mechanogen” during Drosophila gastrulation, driving a self-organized wave of tissue invagination:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Amazing @epimechfc.bsky.social thread by @emmalaang.bsky.social !
Check out our new publication @dev-journal.bsky.social! If you thought that cell divisions challenge tissue boundaries ... you got half of the story! Using in vivo quantitative microscopy and math. modelling we show that divisions fluidize tissues and facilitate boundary refinement. 🧪 #drosophila
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....
New method paper out today on FLIM analysis with Flipper-TR.
We discuss fitting strategies, common pitfalls, and quantitative interpretation for measurements.
First corresponding/last authorship for me!
Free link:
authors.elsevier.com/a/1me2hHRzCb...
Thanks to @rouxlab.bsky.social and Tithi Mandal!
New preprint @biorxiv-devbio.bsky.social by Harshath Amal and colleagues from our lab @uni-muenster.de shows how a BMP #morphogen gradient is translated into graded junctional permeability by tuning adhesion and actomyosin contractility in #Drosophila
See tinyurl.com/yhbwd9xh
@sfb1348.bsky.social
📰 Check out our new paper published in Nature Protocols @natureportfolio.nature.com !!
Great work by Apeksha Shapeti and Janne de Jong, in which they explain everything you need to know to perform 3D traction force microscopy on multicellular systems!!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
(1/3)
Balasubramaniam, L., Jain, S., Dang, T., Lagoutte, E., Marc Mège, R., Chavrier, P., ... & Rossé, C. (2024). Different Biomechanical Cell Behaviors in an Epithelium Drive Collective Epithelial Cell Extrusion. Advanced Science, #EpithelialMechanics doi.org/10.1002/advs...
Honored to see our work featured in a JCB Spotlight by Pacheco and @drericabiophd.bsky.social (@UCSF).
The piece discusses our study revealing distinct force-generating mechanisms in epithelial and mesenchymal collective migration
🔬🐸 Thank you for your careful review of our work!
hubs.la/Q042GFYY0
Our take on a really interesting new study by the Franz lab at UCL, a version of epithelial polarity where you would not expect it! Read our Spotlight and the original paper!
Our latest with @torres-sanchez.bsky.social journals.biologists.com/dev/article-...
Breaking isn’t always a bad thing! Think of birth, seed release...
We highlight how living tissue not only tolerates fractures but actively fracture to grow, shape, reproduce, or adapt – across species and scales.
How do cells generate, sense & resist force?
MBoC highlights recent advances in mechanobiology in its Forces on and within Cells collection — spanning cytoskeletal dynamics, membrane mechanics, and beyond.
🔗 https://www.ascb.org/science-news/exploring-the-forces-that-shape-cells/
Excited to highlight a new preprint about mechanical contributions to tissue homeostasis, from the Manning group in collaboration with the amazing Carien Niessen and Sara Wickstrom @sarawickstrom.bsky.social labs, spearheaded by Dr. Somiealo Azote: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Have you ever wondered what Flipper-TR is and how it works?
Check out this amazing overview by @juanmagararc.bsky.social 👇
We’re excited to share our latest preprint! We identify SKT, a mechanosensitive adhesion protein that recruits mTORC2 to cell–matrix adhesions, linking metabolic demand to matrix stiffness. Disrupting this axis strongly inhibits PDAC tumor growth. shorturl.at/V0tpK
@mathildemathieu.bsky.social @ivaskalab.bsky.social New discovery from us! Leupaxin, a paxillin family member typically expressed in immune cells, negatively regulates durotaxis and mechanoresponsiveness in metastatic breast cancer cell variants and in cells cultured on soft ECM lnkd.in/diEk8DSR
New paper alert!🤩Super proud that our story led by superstar postdocs @liujinghui.bsky.social and @nerlielisa.bsky.social is finally out! We found how electrical signals are key for promoting organ regenerative growth!!! A thread 🧵https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aec0687
Roffay, C., García-Arcos, J. M., Chapuis, P., López-Andarias, J., Schneider, F., ...., Roux, A., & Mercier, V. (2024). Tutorial: fluorescence lifetime microscopy of membrane mechanosensitive Flipper probes. Nature protocols, 19(12), 3457–3469. #EpithelialMechanicsReview
buff.ly/mTlcVwn
