Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Fletcher Lab

@fletcherlabucb.bsky.social

510 followers 200 following 28 posts

Bioengineering, Biophysics, Computational Biology and Molecular and Cell Biology. Account run by students/post-docs. Lab website: https://fletchlab.berkeley.edu/

fletchlab.berkeley.edu

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · Nov 21

Lab: Why aren't we on Bluesky?
Dan: Umm. I don't follow Bluesky.
Lab: But the rest of the world does. Scientists too.
Dan: I see. What's your point?
Lab: We should be on Bluesky. And join scientific discussions.
Dan: I'm more the silent type.
Lab: We'll run it.
Dan: Go for it!

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · 16d

Check out Siddhansh (@sid592.bsky.social) presentation at the 4th Physics of Life Symposium hosted by the #CZBiohubSF. youtu.be/b7G5wyE6iyo?...

2025 Physics of Life Symposium: Siddhansh Agarwal

YouTube video by Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Network

youtu.be

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · 21d

Happy Postdoc Appreciation Week to all of our postdocs! #PostdocAppreciationWeek

1 1

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · Aug 27

Congratulations Kira for passing your qualifying exam!

1 3

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · Aug 13

Take a look at our newest published article in PLOS NTD: doi.org/10.1371/jour... #schistosomiasis #ML #diagnostics

Multi-contrast machine learning improves schistosomiasis diagnostic performance

Author summary Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease that impacts hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Patients with Schistosoma haematobium shed parasite eggs in their urine, which can...

doi.org

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · Aug 7

Check out our most recent published paper in @natcomms.nature.com about the effects of cell surface crowding in cell-cell fusion: rdcu.be/ezCOF

Cell surface crowding is a tunable energetic barrier to cell-cell fusion

Nature Communications - Cell-cell fusion is fundamental to physiological processes such as muscle formation and viral infection. Here, the authors show that the proteins embedded on the plasma...

rdcu.be

2 4 20

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · Aug 5

Check out this talk by one of our amazing postdocs, Deepak! youtu.be/ErE3f5iyPio

2025 Interdisciplinary Science Summit Showcase Talk: Deepak Krishnamurthy

YouTube video by Schmidt Science Fellows

youtu.be

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · Jul 25

Had fun at the MBL Physiology Course in Woods Hole!
Chunzi, Elizabeth & Kira led creative rotations:
• Trogocytosis is a mi(gh)t-y way to transfer
• Sync(ytium) or Swim: Which fusogen will reign supreme?
• Mucin Impossible: Eat up or get lost

2 9

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · Jun 27

Welcome to our new BioE Ph.D. students, Smiti and Michael Anne! @smitim.bsky.social

1 1

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · Jun 19

Congratulations Caitlin!!

Fred Hutch @fredhutch.org · Jun 18

Congratulations to the eight recipients of the 2025 Dr. Eddie Méndez Scholar Award! This award recognizes outstanding early-career scientists from underrepresented backgrounds who are studying cancer, infectious diseases and basic sciences. Learn more: bit.ly/4jWvT8O

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · Apr 21

Come to the Annual Fletcher Lab Artshow on Friday May 9th, 2025! We host this event yearly as an opportunity for folks to display their artwork, come together with wine and cheese, and admire artwork!

1 9

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · Apr 9

Come explore and be amazed on April 12 and 13 at the @exploratorium.bsky.social. This event is based upon work supported by the Center for Cellular Construction. #microscopy #Magnified

2 6

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · Apr 1

Congratulations to both Jared and Andres for passing their qualifying exams

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · Mar 28

Thanks to our collaborators: @gatesfoundation.bsky.social, @isaacbogoch.bsky.social, Spotlab, GH Labs, ISM, CERMEL, UHN, among others.

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · Mar 28

The NTDscope is a portable brightfield, darkfield, and fluorescence microscope used for the diagnosis of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). Check out our latest preprint: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

2 1 4

Reposted by Fletcher Lab

Hypothesis Fund @hypothesisfund.bsky.social · Mar 27

🌟Say hello to Dan Fletcher @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social, a bioengineer renowned for developing novel experimental approaches and microscopy tools with far-reaching impacts on our understanding of infectious diseases, immunology, and cancer biology. 1/

1 1 1

Reposted by Fletcher Lab

Journal of Cell Science @jcellsci.bsky.social · Mar 10

preLights in cell biology (Feb 2025)

This article lists the recent @prelights.bsky.social posts that discuss #preprints in #cellbio. Featured #preLight by @fadelvalle.bsky.social covering work on macrophage trogocytosis from @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social.

journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

preLights in cell biology (February 2025)

This article includes recent preLights posts that discuss preprints in the field of cell biology.Target cell tension regulates macrophage trogocytosis by Caitlin E. Cornell et al.Read the preLight.Vis...

journals.biologists.com

3 7

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · Mar 8

Some lab members and friends attended the #StandupforScience protest.

Reposted by Fletcher Lab

Rhodes Trust @rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk · Feb 19

“We have a role to play in making the world a better place.”

Thank you to #RhodesScholar Professor Dan Fletcher for hosting our partners Schmidt Science Fellows at UC, Berkeley for another year as part of the Science Leadership Program.
@fletcherlabucb.bsky.social 📷 @claudinegossett.bsky.social

Dan Fletcher speaks in front of a banner that reads Schmidt Science Fellows

A group photo from the Science Leadership Program

1 1

Reposted by Fletcher Lab

Tamas Nagy @tamasnagy.com · Dec 17

Fun story from the Fletcher lab showing that surface crowding is a major impediment to cell-cell fusion and myoblasts reduce their surface crowding to improve fusion!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

2 8

Reposted by Fletcher Lab

Meghan Morrissey @mmorrissey.bsky.social · Feb 10

This supports the idea that target cell's biophysical properties regulate the decision to trogocytose instead of phagocytose, as Caitlin Cornell @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social proposed in their recent preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2024.12.02.626490

Target cell tension regulates macrophage trogocytosis

Macrophages are known to engulf small membrane fragments, or trogocytose, target cells and pathogens, rather than fully phagocytose them. However, little is known about what causes macrophages to choo...

doi.org

1 5

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · Feb 3

Check out our latest preprint where we show how you can improve automated detection of schistosomiasis by using images of multiple contrasts (brightfield and darkfield) acquired on a mobile microscope! www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · Jan 29

Happy Lunar New Year! We hope the Lunar New Year brings you much health and happiness. #HappyLunarNewYear2025

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · Jan 8

Check out our most recent paper about a previously under-appreciated crowding barrier to cell-cell fusion. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Cell surface crowding is a tunable biophysical barrier to cell-cell fusion

Cell-cell fusion is fundamental to developmental processes such as muscle formation, as well as to viral infections that cause pathological syncytia. An essential step in fusion is close membrane appo...

www.biorxiv.org

2 7

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · Jan 6

Felipe (@fadelvalle.bsky.social) did a fantastic job summarizing the main points and asking intriguing questions for our future next steps. Check it out!

preLights @prelights.bsky.social · Jan 6

Feeling tense? Macrophages sense that!

Macrophages prefer to "nibble" (trogocytose) soft targets and "engulf" (phagocytose) stiff ones. Stiffness matters for immune responses! #preprint #FletcherLab

Check out the #preLight written by @fadelvalle.bsky.social
prelights.biologists.com/highlights/t...

Target cell tension regulates macrophage trogocytosis - preLights

Feeling tense? Macrophages sense that! Macrophages prefer to "nibble" (trogocytose) soft targets and "engulf" (phagocytose) stiff ones. Stiffness matters for immune responses!

prelights.biologists.com

Fletcher Lab @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social · Jan 1

Happy New Year! Let’s continue pushing the boundaries of science and knowledge