Max Schelski

Job opening: Professorship for Molecular Pharmacology at Marburg University, Germany.

We seek a scientifically outstanding researcher in the field of epithelial biology in inflammation, regeneration, and/or cancer.

stellenangebote.uni-marburg.de/jobposting/0...

Next position advertised by our cluster: We are searching for a Lab Manager running the single cell-sequencing lab at Heidelberg University.
adb.zuv.uni-heidelberg.de/info/INFO_FD...

a close up of a sad cat with the words pleeeaasse written below it ALT: a close up of a sad cat with the words pleeeaasse written below it

Hey, I’ve got a childhood epilepsy R01 I’m writing - it’s mechanistic, focusing on calcium and cytoskeleton.

Waaaaay out of my wheelhouse, and I’d love to get expert’s input for my specific aims - any takers to have a quick look at my page and just absolutely wreck it?

Biological Laboratory | LEGO® Ideas This is a two-floor realistic Biological Laboratory building. In this design, I try to tell stories about biologists, introduce biology concepts to general publ…

I just made an account and voted for this biology laboratory made of LEGO to "promote biological research and inspire more people into the world of biology". They need 10K votes. Reposting and/or voting below would be helpful. 🤗
beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...

Are you a computational postdoc or even in the last year of your PhD and you want to set up your own lab? Want to work in one of the most multi-disciplinary and multi-national institutions in the world? Want to be a leader in understanding biology - molecules up? Apply below!

I think this is a *super* important paper - if this result can be replicated with other regions or tasks then this may come to form our core understanding of credit assignment signals in the neocortex!

#neuroscience 🧪

We're hiring! This is a unique opportunity to translate our understanding of neural computation - from circuit-level mechanisms to computational principles - into the human brain, through the establishment of cutting-edge human neural recording capabilities with collaborators in London and abroad.

We’re hiring a Group Leader!

Join us to lead a transformative initiative in human systems neuroscience.

Find out more and apply ⤵️

www.sainsburywellcome.org/content/curr...

Sub-membrane actin rings compartmentalize the plasma membrane There is mounting evidence that the cytoskeleton organizes the plasma membrane. Due to the dynamic nature of cytoskeletal proteins, direct experimental confirma

Very excited to share my PhD work with @ewerslab.bsky.social at @freieuniversitaet.bsky.social out at JCB! It's all about actin rings and how they compartmentalize the #plasmamembrane! A short thread 1/5

rupress.org/jcb/article-...

🚨🚨🚨Attention, cell biologists! @jcellsci.bsky.social are recruiting a new EiC to follow in @drmichaelway.bsky.social’s footsteps & are seeking community input - link to survey 👇

🥳🥳🥳 Pretty fab start to 2026!!

Toward a science of prospective learning In a constantly changing world, effective intelligence means anticipating future changes. Kording et al. argue that organisms adapt prospectively, modeling how environments and capabilities of the org...

While much of machine learning is retrospective (learn the past distribution) learning in biology is prospective (learn for the future) - here we discuss some implications for neuroscience (with @tdverstynen.bsky.social, Josh Vogelstein, Pratik Chaudhari): www.cell.com/neuron/abstr...

Fluorescence lifetime-based biosensor for monitoring compartmentalized autophagy dynamics in the intact mammalian brain Synaptic architecture underlies neuronal computation, with autophagy serving as a key regulator of synaptic plasticity, function and local metabolism. Yet, autophagy dynamics and regulation within int...

I am excited to share our new paper, where we developed and used a new approach that allows us to dynamically monitor autophagy in the intact mouse brain! biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

Finally got the job ad—looking for 2 PhD students to start spring next year:

www.gao-unit.com/join-us/

If comp neuro, ML, and AI4Neuro is your thing, or you just nerd out over brain recordings, apply!

I'm at neurips. DM me here / on the conference app or email if you want to meet 🏖️🌮

Glad to see this out 😊 Thanks to @joss-openjournals.bsky.social for the smooth review process 🙏

MotilA – A Python pipeline for the analysis of microglial fine process motility in 3D time-lapse multiphoton microscopy data Musacchio et al., (2025). MotilA – A Python pipeline for the analysis of microglial fine process motility in 3D time-lapse multiphoton microscopy data. Journal of Open Source Software, 10(116), 9267, ...

Happy to share that our #JOSS paper on MotilA is now published 😊

#OpenSource #Python pipeline for reproducible, batch-scale analysis of #microglia fine-process motility in 3D/4D in vivo multiphoton imaging:

📄 doi.org/10.21105/jos...
💻 github.com/FabrizioMusa...

#Neuroscience 🧪 #OpenScience

Uni Bern: PhD Position in Statistics with a focus on Statistical Machine Learning for Self-Driving Microscopy

🔬📊 PhD (100%) – Statistics & ML for self-driving microscopy

Joint PhD with David Ginsbourger (Stats) & Pertz Lab (Cell Biology).
Gaussian Processes, Bayesian design, active learning on live-cell experiments.

ohws.prospective.ch/public/v1/jo...

#PhD #Statistics #MachineLearning #Bayesian

Two Dopamine Neuron Subtypes Process Smell in Different Ways - Neuroscience News Closely related dopamine-releasing neurons in the olfactory bulb behave in fundamentally different ways depending on their physical structure.

Our paper is featured in Neuroscience News @neurosciencenews.bsky.social !

neurosciencenews.com/olfaction-do...

How does the axonal sub-membrane periodic cytoskeleton develop? Nick & Rohan from our lab found that building blocks are delivered in packets and co-assemble locally with actin for final structure. Fun collaboration with imaging Guru @christlet.bsky.social and his team.

www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

Slowdown of microtubule retrograde flow enables axon and dendrite development and maintenance https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.18.694605v1

That's a wrap! Thanks to the great people that did most of the experiments for this project: Thorben Pietralla, @cboeger.bsky.social and Sina Stern. Of course thanks to Nenad Pavin for supervising the super fun modeling part of the project. And thanks to Frank Bradke for bringing us all together.

Slowdown of microtubule retrograde flow enables axon and dendrite development and maintenance Distinct microtubule arrays form in axons and dendrites defining their functions in neurons. These arrays are thought to develop through separate processes. Here we challenge this view by showing that...

Of course there is much more in the preprint - so check it out: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

3) Dendrite growth is triggered by the same mechanism as axon growth: MT-RF slowdown, not by different mechanisms.
4) Axon growth is not only regulated by entrance of MTs into the growth cone but by redistributing MTs from the shaft to the growth cone by MT-RF slowdown and increased MT branching.

As promised in the beginning, MT-RF slowdown as a unifying mechanism for axon and dendrite development lead to 4 unexpected conclusions:
1) MT stabilization is not enough for a high increase in stable MTs, MT-RF has to slow down, too.
2) Not only axons but also dendrites increase stable MTs.

… and even more strongly by the reduced cytosolic MT nucleation, which is needed for the uniform MT orientation in axons.

How come that distal MTs depend so much on MT-RF slowdown in axons? Our model predicts that this effect is mediated by the increased stable MT half-life in axons …

Experimentally we indeed find that stable MTs increase towards the axon tip, which is fit well by the model. Unstable MTs are not fit well by the model close to the soma, which suggests that mechanisms at the axon initial segment, e.g. TRIM46 accumulation, could be important for unstable MTs.

Distal MTs are crucial for axonal growth. Our model predicts that without MT-RF slowdown MTs don't reach the distal axon. With MT-RF slowdown, MTs not only reach the axon tip but MTs increase towards the axon tip when we incorporate the known axonal increase in MT branching nucleation.

We validated the prediction of the effect of MT-RF on the dendritic MT array by showing that our model can predict the experimental MT loss globally and distally (close to the tip) after MT-RF speedup in dendrites - using the experimentally measured MT-RF speeds before and after speedup.

High stable MT increase is enabled by MT-RF slowdown. When MT-RF is not slowed down, the lower stable MT loss rate in dendrites only increases stable MTs by 50% globally. When MT-RF is slowed down, stable MTs are increased three times more, by 150%, and distal stable MTs increase instead of reduce.

Our model shows that dendrites in fact massively increase stable MT mass by 200% compared to developing neurites - and increase stable distal MTs even more.