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Zheng Shi

@zs-biophys

Assistant Professor at Rutgers Chemistry and Chemical Biology, studies cell membranes and biomolecular condensates. https://sites.rutgers.edu/shi-lab/

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29.11.2024
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Latest posts by Zheng Shi @zs-biophys

Come check out the fancy subgroup t-shirt as well!

21.02.2026 15:43 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Look forward to catching up at the Membrane Structure and Function Subgroup on Saturday morning!
#bps2026
We also have several posters and talks coming up in the next few days, check them out!

21.02.2026 05:46 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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What's the relation between voltage and calcium in dendrites? Xiang Wu studied this in CA2 hippocampal pyramidal cells in behaving mice. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

21.01.2026 19:50 πŸ‘ 58 πŸ” 17 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

looks more expensive than ours πŸ˜‚

16.01.2026 03:34 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

cute!

16.01.2026 03:13 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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People in the lab made me this ☺️

16.01.2026 01:41 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 1
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Happy new year! I've so enjoyed the end-of-year lists of people's favorite papers from 2025, so I made a list of 16 #lipidtime studies from 2025 that I found interesting. Here they are in no particular order (please add more if you would like!), and here's to much more exciting science in 2026! πŸ§ͺ

05.01.2026 14:48 πŸ‘ 65 πŸ” 25 πŸ’¬ 5 πŸ“Œ 1
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What is the computational role of dendritic excitations? Byung Hun Lee and team mapped voltage dynamics throughout the dendritic trees of CA1 pyramidal neurons in mice navigating in virtual reality. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

04.01.2026 06:17 πŸ‘ 130 πŸ” 50 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 2

If you're at #cellbio2025, @atmolines.bsky.social Hernan Garcia and I invite you to attend our Minisymposium β€œPhysical Cell Biology from Molecules to Organisms” for incredible talks on epigenetic mechanical memory, viscoelasticity, cortical flows, morphogenesis, tissue wetting, size scaling, et al!

05.12.2025 23:13 πŸ‘ 28 πŸ” 10 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 4
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Membrane potential s an important regulator of cell number density and growth via Hippo-FAT1 signaling in response to mechanical pressure
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... @cellcellpress.bsky.social @harvardmed.bsky.social

02.12.2025 20:04 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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An idea we started in 2019 is now published in @natneuro.nature.com! Excited to share our new study: rdcu.be/eRvdA

Congrats to Mengmeng Jin and our team! Heartfelt thanks to all collaborators for their support, and to the reviewers for their insightful comments!

24.11.2025 14:17 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

... and we should be careful when comparing surface objects to 3-dimentional ones. Things can get very confusing!

31.10.2025 20:17 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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... I put the dot there, because it fits nicely to a corner of the Central Park!

In other words, fresh water in lakes and rivers corresponds to the volume of more than 1,000,000 billion human!

So, yes, fresh water is a valuable resource - but, might not be as scarce as shown in the first image...

31.10.2025 20:17 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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.. But, how does '8 billion people' fit on this image?

It was already shown.
Did you notice it?
If not, let me help you with this red arrow.

It turns out, 8 billion people can 'nicely' pack into a sphere of 1 km diameter.
In this image, it's represented by that tiny red dot in New York City...

31.10.2025 20:17 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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... Let me show this on a different map. The map of New Jersey, one of the smallest states in the US.

The entirety of fresh water barely covers NJ, and fresh water in lakes/rivers barely fills a small county.

These are supposed to support the need of ~8 Billion people, isn't that crazy?! ...

31.10.2025 20:17 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

... leaving only that tiny blue pixel (representing fresh water in lakes and rivers) readily available to us.

When I first saw this picture in school, I was so impressed. I was convinced that fresh water is an extremely limited resource for humanity. Yet, something always felt counterintuitive...

31.10.2025 20:17 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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In the spirit of Halloween, let me share with you a 'scary' piece of statistics.

Many of you may have seen this image, which demonstrates the extreme scarcity of fresh water on Earth.

That small droplet over Atlanta is our ENTIRE storage of fresh water. But, most of those are hard to get...

31.10.2025 20:17 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Happy to share that this work is now published in @biophysj.bsky.social! doi.org/10.1016/j.bp...

23.10.2025 16:30 πŸ‘ 25 πŸ” 6 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Cluster nanoarchitecture and structural diversity of PIEZO1 at rest and during activation in intact cells MINFLUX nanoscopy reveals subcellular distribution and conformational diversity of PIEZO1 channels in intact cells.

Cluster nanoarchitecture and structural diversity of PIEZO1 at rest and during activation in intact cells | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

23.10.2025 13:23 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

πŸ˜‚

22.10.2025 22:16 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Apparently, these are the main (research) topics we are known for within my university :)

Fun fact: if you google "Rutgers tension", we are among the top hits - only behind the 2023 Rutgers University strike...

22.10.2025 19:50 πŸ‘ 4 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

I never truly appreciated the name Invitrogen until I came across a company called 'Invivogen'.

16.10.2025 22:33 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Mechanical Regulation And Activity of Nuclear Condensates The cell nucleus is constantly subjected to forces under many fundamental biological processes, including confined cell migration, osmoregulation, and large-scale stresses across tissues during develo...

Mechanical Regulation And Activity of Nuclear Condensates: Biophysical Journal www.cell.com/biophysj/ful...

10.10.2025 13:32 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Congratulations to the β€œReal Chemistβ€πŸ‘¨β€πŸ”¬

08.10.2025 21:38 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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πŸš€The #BiomembraneDays2025 concluded

WE THANK ALL PARTICIPANTS & OUR SPONSORSπŸ™πŸ™πŸ™

@abberior.rocks
Critical Insights in Biophysics
Ernst Rudolf Schloeßmann Foundation
@dfg.de
@jcellsci.bsky.social
@lipotype.bsky.social
@naniontech.bsky.social
@picoquant.bsky.social
Refeyn Ltd
@biologists.bsky.social

04.10.2025 16:29 πŸ‘ 17 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

That’s great, thanks Helge!

04.10.2025 05:46 πŸ‘ 0 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Can’t believe Germany πŸ‡©πŸ‡ͺ has an entire day off so that people can listen to the new Taylor Swift album 🎧🎢 πŸ˜‚

Any lab here open to hosting a visiting scientist next year?
For someone who is interested in advanced microscopy and cellular mechanics (and can still do experiments πŸ™‹)?

03.10.2025 21:15 πŸ‘ 15 πŸ” 1 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Look what I found in Berlin!

02.10.2025 18:30 πŸ‘ 9 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Aka, β€œcell membranes resist flowβ€πŸ˜‰

01.10.2025 07:40 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Wish @adamezracohen.bsky.social and @sorkinlab.bsky.social were here!
Here is the authors’ reaction:

30.09.2025 20:44 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0