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Reposted by Alex Hughes Lab

Daniel J. Cohen (Princeton) @djcohen.bsky.social · 8d

So: can a cell hold hands with itself…and do we care? YES and YES! Read on to learn WHY, HOW, and what this has to do with…PARIS (and tree-hugging)? Swansong of Dr. Anamika; Hannah Kim on drums; and fantastic undergrads (Margaret/Lauren) ! 1/n
advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

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Alex Hughes Lab @hugheslabpenn.bsky.social · 7d

Fantastic mechanics in fertility / development story from @katecavanaugh.bsky.social. Hiring committees take note 👀

Kate Cavanaugh @katecavanaugh.bsky.social · 7d

See this? This = implanting mouse embryo. Usually this happens inside its mother and is invisible to us, but we can actually watch implantation ex vivo with the hope of understanding why implantation goes awry in embryos of older women. A 🧵...

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Reposted by Alex Hughes Lab

Pierre Haas @lepuslapis.bsky.social · 19d

Now #published @pnas.org: "A model for boundary-driven tissue morphogenesis", a great #biophysics #devbio collaboration led by @danielalber.bsky.social @zhaoshh.bsky.social:

doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2505160122

@mpipks.bsky.social @mpi-cbg.de @csbdresden.bsky.social @flatironinstitute.org

Pierre Haas @lepuslapis.bsky.social · Mar 6

New #preprint: "A model for boundary-driven tissue morphogenesis" arxiv.org/abs/2503.03688.

A great collaboration with @danielalber.bsky.social @zhaoshh.bsky.social, Alexandre Jacinto, Eric Wieschaus, Stas Shvartsman.

@flatironinstitute.org @mpipks.bsky.social @mpi-cbg.de @csbdresden.bsky.social

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Alex Hughes Lab @hugheslabpenn.bsky.social · 16d

Cool paper by new Hughes lab postdoc @danielalber.bsky.social

Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics @mpi-cbg.de · 19d

Peer pressure shapes the gut: latest publication in @pnas.org by @lepuslapis.bsky.social, @zhaoshh.bsky.social from @mpipks.bsky.social @mpi-cbg.de @csbdresden.bsky.social with colleagues from @flatironinstitute.org and Princeton University. www.mpi-cbg.de/news-outreac...

Peer pressure shapes the gut

International research team develops mechanical model to explain the shaping of the fruit fly hindgut by forces from neighbouring tissues

www.mpi-cbg.de

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Alex Hughes Lab @hugheslabpenn.bsky.social · 20d

Apply to join our Penn Bioengineering department, featuring friendly, supportive faculty and staff, rigorous science, and top students!
apply.interfolio.com/173716

Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio

apply.interfolio.com

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Alex Hughes Lab @hugheslabpenn.bsky.social · Aug 29

Great opportunity to work with a very creative PI

Shashank Shekhar lab @sshekhr.bsky.social · Aug 29

📢📢Hiring 2 Research Assistants & 2 Postdocs at Emory University in Atlanta to study cytoskeletal biophysics/biochemistry. Please RT.

RAs: great for recent bachelor's/master's in Physics/Bio/Chem/Biochem. Email CV and interests to [email protected].

More info: www.shekharlab.org

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Alex Hughes Lab @hugheslabpenn.bsky.social · Aug 22

Aria Huang's @azyhuang.bsky.social paper is out on beautiful embryonic kidney 3D cultures that branch properly and enable live defect analysis. She also finds intriguing effects of adhesion and stiffness on explant size, shape, and nephron formation - boundary conditions matter!

rdcu.be/eBSUK

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Reposted by Alex Hughes Lab

Kate Miroshnikova @katemiro.bsky.social · Aug 15

Pathologists have used nuclear & tissue shapes to diagnose #cancer for decades, but what is the molecular basis for this? In our latest work, we develop a computational pipeline to figure this out in #colorectalcancer! Check out 🧵& preprint #mechanobiology #stemcells www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Reposted by Alex Hughes Lab

Michael P Hart 🏳️‍🌈 (he/him) @michaelphart1.bsky.social · Aug 13

Do you like neuronal #plasticity? #genetics? #Celegans? Check out 1st installment of work by Kristi Zoga in the lab. Kristi screened 20 conserved #autism genes for roles in experience-dependent #neuron remodeling and a related behavior.
doi.org/10.1093/genetics/iyaf156

Multiple autism genes influence GABA neuron remodeling via distinct developmental trajectories

Abstract. Variation in over 100 genes are now associated with increased risk for autism and related neurodevelopmental conditions, but how this variation r

doi.org

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Reposted by Alex Hughes Lab

Emily Kolenbrander Ho @emkolen.bsky.social · Jul 22

pYtags - our in vivo biosensors for receptor tyrosine kinases - in all their beauty on the cover of Cell Reports! Read more here: www.cell.com/cell-reports...

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Alex Hughes Lab @hugheslabpenn.bsky.social · Jul 16

Super cool project #2

Arjun Raj @arjunraj.bsky.social · Jul 15

Very excited to share our new work on gastruloids by the incredible Cat Triandafillou! We mapped gene expression across 26 individual gastruloids at single-cell resolution and discovered some pretty amazing patterns about how these "mini-embryos" organize themselves.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Single-cell spatial mapping reveals reproducible cell type organization and spatially-dependent gene expression in gastruloids

Gastruloids are three-dimensional stem-cell-based models that recapitulate key aspects of mammalian gastrulation, including formation of an anterior-posterior (AP) axis. However, we do not have detail...

www.biorxiv.org

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Alex Hughes Lab @hugheslabpenn.bsky.social · Jul 16

Super cool project @vayyappan.bsky.social

Arjun Raj @arjunraj.bsky.social · Jul 15

Check out this awesome work from @vayyappan.bsky.social… Embryo Economics! :)

Vinay Ayyappan @vayyappan.bsky.social · Jul 15

[0/8] Stoked to share our work with @arjunraj.bsky.social on tissue organization in the gastruloid. We use lineage tracing and spatial transcriptomics to show that diversity among stem cell clones promotes, rather than hinders, gastruloid development: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Reposted by Alex Hughes Lab

John Wallingford @jbwallingford.bsky.social · Jul 11

Birth defects kill twice as many children as cancer. Animal model are crucial; no stem-cell or computer models can yet recapitulate the embryo's complexity. If you support birth defects research tell NIH that animal models are important! Click & scroll below to comment.

tinyurl.com/mr3he6bx

FDA-NIH Workshop: Reducing Animal Testing

The FDA is hosting a workshop on reducing animal testing. The workshop is open to current FDA and NIH employees.

tinyurl.com

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Reposted by Alex Hughes Lab

Pau Guillamat @pauguillamat.bsky.social · Jun 30

New preprint out! We show how cellular nematic order can be harnessed to program tissue-wide force fields and guide 3D shape transformations.

The tissue morphogenesis logic, now engineered into living, programmable materials.

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

#ActiveMatter #TissueEngineering

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Reposted by Alex Hughes Lab

brangwynnelab.bsky.social @brangwynnelab.bsky.social · Jun 9

Start of 2025 @mblscience.bsky.social Physiology course! This is the second year of Amy @gladfelterlab.bsky.social and I co-Directing this absolutely amazing and life-changing course: www.mbl.edu/education/ad...

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Alex Hughes Lab @hugheslabpenn.bsky.social · Jun 3

Our own @azyhuang.bsky.social is a student this year representing the kidney fanatics

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Alex Hughes Lab @hugheslabpenn.bsky.social · May 28

We used Hausdorff distance to compare 3D shapes in model:experiment in this paper:
advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Some spatial frequency approach might help you quantify the 'bumpiness' separate from the 'shape'.
Seems like ‪@keenancrane.bsky.social‬ would be helpful

Guiding Cell Network Assembly using Shape‐Morphing Hydrogels

Choreographed movement of cells and extracellular matrix (ECM) is a common, yet under-engineered tissue-building process. Shape-changing metamaterials (“kinomorphs”) made from precisely patterned cel...

advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Alex Hughes Lab @hugheslabpenn.bsky.social · May 7

fantastic series of work by @bugajlab.bsky.social and @dennishuang.bsky.social

Lukasz Bugaj @bugajlab.bsky.social · Apr 30

Proteins often bind targets using avidity, the combined interaction strength of multiple weak binders. Now we’ve harnessed this principle for compact, *single*-component optogenetic tools for translocation. Lead by phenom PhD student @dennishuang.bsky.social #synbiosky🧵

📝 tinyurl.com/aviatar

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Reposted by Alex Hughes Lab

Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · May 5

I'm a big fan of this paper on the shape of rose petals.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Geometrically frustrated rose petals

Growth and form are deeply interconnected, in a manner often mediated by mechanical instabilities arising from geometric incompatibilities. Although Gauss incompatibility has long been recognized as t...

www.science.org

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Alex Hughes Lab @hugheslabpenn.bsky.social · Apr 30

Whoa, fantastic stuff! This may be just the beginning of the somites <--> kidneys connection

Lori O'Brien @llobrienlab.bsky.social · Apr 30

Check out the latest from Alan Davidson’s lab (of zf kidney regeneration fame) showing somites contribute to making nephrons in zebrafish. GESTALT, Cre lineage tracing, and zf somite transplants 😱. Love a good story that challenges dogma. Great discussions were had!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Somites are a source of nephron progenitors in zebrafish

For over a century it has been believed that the vertebrate kidney arises exclusively from the intermediate mesoderm. Here, we overturn this paradigm by demonstrating that some nephrons, the functiona...

www.biorxiv.org

Alex Hughes Lab @hugheslabpenn.bsky.social · Apr 24

Cool thread Rikki, the adhesion and motility correlation makes sense and neat to see the data collapse onto it. cancer invasion / emt would show negative corr right? Also wondering about when global dev rate is faster or slower, local self-organization has to match rate of events happening nearby

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Alex Hughes Lab @hugheslabpenn.bsky.social · Apr 18

I remember that @sshekhr.bsky.social was thinking about this way back at MBL @mblscience.bsky.social Woods Hole Physiology course 2014. Congrats & way cool Shashank!

Shashank Shekhar lab @sshekhr.bsky.social · Apr 2

📢Excited to share our new paper in Nature Physics
@naturephysics.bsky.social: Cooperative hydrodynamics accompany multicellular-like colonial organization in the unicellular Stentor!

How do single-celled organisms benefit from teamwork? Let’s dive in! #Multicellularity nature.com/articles/s41...?

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Reposted by Alex Hughes Lab

The Company of Biologists @biologists.bsky.social · Apr 11

Early-career researchers can apply for a funded place at our Workshop 'New Technologies for Studying and Reprogramming Development' organised by Alex Dunn,
@zevgartner.bsky.social , @adrianjacobo.bsky.social and Matthew Kutys.
📆Apply by 23 May
biologists.com/workshops/no...
#BiologistsWorkshops

Workshop
New Technologies for Studying and Reprogramming Development

Organisers: Alex Dunn, Zev Gartner, Adrian Jacobo and Matthew Kutys

Early-career researchers apply for funded places

16-19 November 2025
Buxted Park, East Sussex, UK

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Reposted by Alex Hughes Lab

Zikang (Dennis) Huang @dennishuang.bsky.social · Apr 15

How can an individual protein show adaptation? The light- and temp-sensitive BcLOV4 gives a pulse of translocation during a step input of light. Answer in our preprint: *intra-molecular* feed-forward regulation. bit.ly/3Rg9veD
A @bugajlab.bsky.social collab with @nmrkaygee.bsky.social 🧵

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Reposted by Alex Hughes Lab

Shashank Shekhar lab @sshekhr.bsky.social · Apr 15

Thrilled to be featured in The New York Times! @nytimes.com

Fantastic piece by @jack-tamisiea.bsky.social on our discovery of the role of physical forces in evolution! With insightful comments from @wcratcliff.bsky.social!

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