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Babak Vajdi Hokmabad @babakvh.bsky.social · 23h

Thank you, Saverio! It was a fun experiment, indeed, and there's so much more to explore :)

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Babak Vajdi Hokmabad @babakvh.bsky.social · 2d

Excited to see this paper out @pnas.org

Microbial self-organization in response to self-made oxygen gradients! 🦠 🔄 🍥

Babak Vajdi Hokmabad @babakvh.bsky.social · Feb 27

Excited to release our latest work:
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Here, we describe how confined bacterial suspensions self-organize into structured domains of different motilities, in response to oxygen limitations🦠🍥

Bluetorial follows! [1/8]

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Reposted by Babak Vajdi Hokmabad

Katrina Velle @katrinavelle.bsky.social · 4d

PhD or Master's position available for Fall 2026!

Interested in how actin drives cell crawling, eating, dividing, or osmoregulation? What about pathogenesis of a brain-eating amoeba? Or eukaryotic evolution? If so, apply through my website: katrinavelle.wixsite.com/science/cont...
Please share!

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Reposted by Babak Vajdi Hokmabad

Kirsty Wan @micromotility.bsky.social · Aug 6

We have a postdoc opening for a protistologist with biophysics inclinations to join our @hfspo.bsky.social project! (focus will be on characterising the morphology, ultrastructure and behaviour of excavates) #protistsonsky

Apply by Sept 17th (RTs appreciated!)
jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...

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Reposted by Babak Vajdi Hokmabad

Babak Vajdi Hokmabad @babakvh.bsky.social · Feb 27

Excited to release our latest work:
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Here, we describe how confined bacterial suspensions self-organize into structured domains of different motilities, in response to oxygen limitations🦠🍥

Bluetorial follows! [1/8]

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Reposted by Babak Vajdi Hokmabad

Will Ratcliff @wcratcliff.bsky.social · Mar 5

1/46 Hey folks, we have a new paper out on the MuLTEE. Strap in and I’ll tell you the story of how this “little paper on polyploidy” turned into the most data rich paper our lab has produced, largely thanks to the leadership and work ethic of @kaitong25.bsky.social.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Genome duplication in a long-term multicellularity evolution experiment - Nature

In the Multicellularity Long Term Evolution Experiment, diploid yeast evolve to be tetraploid under selection for larger multicellular size, revealing how whole-genome duplication can arise due to its...

www.nature.com

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Babak Vajdi Hokmabad @babakvh.bsky.social · Feb 27

It was fun to uncover this story—bridging microbial physiology, biological pattern formation, & active matter physics. The results may even have implications for controlling microbes in applications. We'd love your feedback. Please report/share with whoever might be interested! [8/8]

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Babak Vajdi Hokmabad @babakvh.bsky.social · Feb 27

Many biological fluids are polymer solutions, whose viscoelasticity can enhance cell swimming and promote large-scale mixing.
We showed that the core-shell organization also arises in polymer solutions, but with fascinating additional flow fluctuations. [7/8]

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Babak Vajdi Hokmabad @babakvh.bsky.social · Feb 27

We then developed a biophysical model describing this interplay quantitatively. The model recapitulates the experiments, and also yields criteria for predicting the different ways in which confined bacterial populations self-organize under different conditions. [6/8]

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Babak Vajdi Hokmabad @babakvh.bsky.social · Feb 27

Cells consume O2, creating a gradient that alters motility: (i) They move up the gradient toward the droplet boundary via aerotaxis, & (ii) They stop swimming in the anoxic droplet core and accumulate. These motility variations in turn reshape O2 fluxes. A feedback loop! [5/8]

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Babak Vajdi Hokmabad @babakvh.bsky.social · Feb 27

By simultaneously measuring cell distributions, oxygen concentration, and swimming-generated fluid flow, we figured out that this spatial organization is driven by the interplay between cell metabolism-generated oxygen gradients and collective motility. [4/8]

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Babak Vajdi Hokmabad @babakvh.bsky.social · Feb 27

Surprisingly, when the droplets are big and concentrated, the cells self-organize into a concentrated inner "core" of immotile cells surrounded by a more dilute outer "shell" of highly motile cells. (See movie in 1st tweet.) In some cases, the core shrinks and disappears. [3/8]

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Babak Vajdi Hokmabad @babakvh.bsky.social · Feb 27

Bacteria often inhabit confined spaces, such as biological tissues/gels & soils/sediments, where metabolites are scarce. What influence does confinement have on a population of motile bacteria?
We addressed this question by studying quasi 2D droplets of swimming E. coli. [2/8]

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Babak Vajdi Hokmabad @babakvh.bsky.social · Feb 27

Excited to release our latest work:
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Here, we describe how confined bacterial suspensions self-organize into structured domains of different motilities, in response to oxygen limitations🦠🍥

Bluetorial follows! [1/8]

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Reposted by Babak Vajdi Hokmabad

Fernando Rossine @fernpizza.bsky.social · Feb 21

I'm so happy that I can finally share the results of my first postdoc paper with @baym.lol!!! Turns out plasmids are an amazing system to study multi-scale evolution and we can track within-cell and between-cell dynamics!
(1/n) www.biorxiv.org/content/earl...

Intracellular competition shapes plasmid population dynamics

Conflicts between levels of biological organization are central to evolution, from populations of multicellular organisms to selfish genetic elements in microbes. Plasmids are extrachromosomal, self-r...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Babak Vajdi Hokmabad

Antoine Deblais @antoinedeblais.bsky.social · Feb 13

The 🪱 mania continues!
In our latest study, led by Rosa, we explored the locomotion and dynamics of living worms—acting as active polymers—navigating a porous environment made of 3D-printed pillar arrays. And we found something surprising...

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Reposted by Babak Vajdi Hokmabad

Ákos T Kovács @evolvedbiofilm.bsky.social · Feb 13

Spatial population dynamics of bacterial colonies with social antibiotic resistance

#PNAS by @marlis.bsky.social and late Kevin B. Wood

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

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Reposted by Babak Vajdi Hokmabad

Alban Sauret @albansauret.bsky.social · Feb 3

Stickiness matters! From powder handling to geophysical flows, cohesion in granular material plays a crucial role. We review in Soft Matter @roysocchem.bsky.social experimental approaches to create and control inter-particle adhesion pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

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Reposted by Babak Vajdi Hokmabad

ᐯIᑕTOᖇ ᑎIᘔET, ᗰᗪ @nizet.bsky.social · Jan 19

🄱🄸🄾🄵🄸🄻🄼
🄱🄸🄾🄿🄷🅈🅂🄸🄲🅂

Fascinating work from Sebastian Gonzalez La Corte, Sujit Data, et al at CalTech on polymer-induced entropic attractions that hinder diffusion and lead bacteria to form long spaghetti-like cables within mucus and biofilms

Paper in Science Advances: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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Reposted by Babak Vajdi Hokmabad

Joel Marthelot @joelmarthelot.bsky.social · Dec 11

Fresh off the press, our work on wing deployment in Drosophila 🪰:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Work by: Simon Hadjaje, Ignacio Andrade-Silva, Marie-Julie Dalbe and Raphaël Clément

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Reposted by Babak Vajdi Hokmabad

Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · Dec 3

Vodka can propel tiny robots across the water

arstechnica.com

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Babak Vajdi Hokmabad @babakvh.bsky.social · Nov 22

Can I please be added here?

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Babak Vajdi Hokmabad @babakvh.bsky.social · Nov 22

This is a beautiful work Nico! Congrats!

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Reposted by Babak Vajdi Hokmabad

Maik Bischoff @maikbischoff.bsky.social · Nov 19

Starter Pack: Collective #CellMigration /Dynamics is growing. Looking at related emergent phenomena eg. #intercallation, dorsal closure or branching #morphogenesis? Reach out! Also modelers, soft-matter physicists & YOUNG scientists etc etc!

go.bsky.app/DLUDYX3
#cellbio #SoftMatterPhysics #science

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Babak Vajdi Hokmabad @babakvh.bsky.social · Nov 22

Can I please be added here?

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