Excited to announce Physics of Living Matter 19! To be held in Cambridge 24-25th September 2026:

www.plm-symposium.org

2026 Waddington Medal Winner - James Briscoe - BSDB - British Society for Developmental Biology We are very pleased to announce that this year’s Waddington medal winner is James Briscoe. His fundamental discoveries have helped shape our understanding of of how morphogens work, and he has played ...

Honoured and overwhelmed to receive the 2026 Waddington Medal. Science is a team effort, and I've been fortunate to work alongside exceptional people asking hard questions. Thank you to the BSDB and to everyone who has been part of the journey.

bsdb.org/2026/03/24/2...

I really enjoyed a lot visiting @ISTAustria, discussing intensely many interesting problems with the students and posdocs all day long 🤓, and for giving a talk. Thank you 🙏🏼 @ehannezo.bsky.social for the invitation and for the very nice dinner with Gasper Tkacik 🤩. Wonderful day, and see you soon!

🚨 New paper from our lab just published in Nature🚨

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

Discover how 🌱 tumour formation is shaped by tissue context from the very beginning. Cancer is not driven by genetics alone

✨Fantastic team led by Greta Skrupskelyte, Eduardo Rojo, @hariajith.bsky.social

Congrats to @zdunajova.bsky.social​​ on defending her PhD thesis! Her research bridges physics and biology, showing how cells and proteins organize themselves and form patterns. This may lead to new ways to control biological processes like wound healing and inspire smart medical materials.

Thank you @ehannezo.bsky.social for a great day of Science and friends at @istaresearch.bsky.social. Good to see the the fruitful interface of Physics and #DevBio at work,

Emergence and Self-organisation across biological scales! I hope you are ready for next year conference! It will be an incredible event April 20-22 2026. The first of many #LakeConference organised by
@ehannezo.bsky.social @alleninstitute.org and James Sharpe @embl.org

Three more weeks to sign up!

🚨 New preprint!
We built a single-cell atlas of 14 multilayered epithelia and revealed a conserved transcriptomic program guiding tissue architecture and fate composition. Our work brings decades of tissue-specific studies together into a unified evo-devo framework.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🔬 PhD or Postdoc Position in Experimental Biophysics — University of Vienna

We are hiring for the WWTF-funded project MechanoSynth — focused on decoding and engineering multiscale mechanoresponses in synthetic and biological tissues.

PhD (48 months) or Postdoc (24 months). Vienna, Austria.

How can we organize current theoretical approaches for developmental biology - from information to dynamical systems & GRNs - into a common framework?

We propose to think along Marr's 3 levels: computational problem, algorithm, implementation

Check out our review:
arxiv.org/abs/2510.24536

Our fully-funded PhD program is open for applications!

Join us to conduct cutting-edge research at top facilities with guidance from world-class faculty. Through our interdisciplinary training, you can tailor your PhD experience to match your interests and curiosity.

Apply now: phd.ista.ac.at

Looking forward to this highly interactive meeting! Great cross-disciplinary speakers & opportunities for contributed talks, sign up !! 👇👇👇

📣Announcing the 4th edition of the EMBL‑IBEC Conference on “Engineering Multicellular Systems”, taking place 11–13 March 2026 in Barcelona. Exploring organoids, mechanobiology, embryo models, organ-on-chip systems, multiomics and more. Abstracts open now!
events.ibecbarcelona.eu/embl-ibec-co...

Is academic research becoming too competitive? Nature examines the data Applications for European research grants increased in 2025. Scientists say they’re feeling the competition.

Success rates for Europe’s leading research grants are declining as a surge in applications far outweighs the funds available

go.nature.com/479Sni6

1/ 🎉Excited to share our new preprint @vignjeviclab.bsky.social @davidbrueckner.bsky.social :

"Self-organization of tumor heterogeneity and plasticity"
biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Tumor heterogeneity and plasticity drive metastasis and relapse. How is tumor patterning coordinated?

A thread👇

Contractile fibroblasts form a transient niche for the branching mammary epithelium Nature Communications - Fibroblasts represent a heterogenous cell population but how their differences reflect their plasticity and origin is not fully understood. Here, the authors map the origin...

So proud of the exciting story from my PhD student Jakub Sumbal on contractile fibroblasts shaping branching morphogenesis!
Fantastic collaboration with the lab of Zuzana Koledova in Prague!
@sumbalovakoledova.bsky.social

It just came out online, check it out here:
rdcu.be/eIIKD

How do cells navigate up gradients of adhesive proteins?
🤔

Termed "Haptotaxis", this effect is ubiquitous in cell migration, but it's mechanism was poorly understood

We show that passive friction directs cells & explains complex trajectories on gradients

👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our latest preprint! Into morphogenesis, Yap, ECM, signaling, vertex models, feedbacks/robustness? There is something here for everyone. We discovered a positive feedback loop that extends inner ear canals, and a built-in mechanism that shuts it down when morphogenesis is done. tinyurl.com/464wsjhd

Now out in final published form - with a new title "Mechanical control of cell fate decisions in the skin epidermis" and simulations/quantifications! See below for thread of how unbalanced tensions can bias fate choices in minimal 3D models of tissues! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧵1/14 Preprint thread! Can we predict a cell’s fate based on its dynamics? 🔮 Our new study unveils a framework for watching development unfold in real-time, revealing how a cell's shape and movement encode info about its future fate. 🔬📄 Preprint: tinyurl.com/4shf8v4x

Core achievement unlocked!! Congrats to Fabrizio amd all authors!!

Who knew that the perfect pasta sauce could lead to a Nobel Prize? Congrats to ISTA postdoc Fabrizio Olmeda and collaborators for winning the Ig Nobel Prize with their research on mastering Cacio e Pepe. Bravo! 🍝 🎉

Getting hungry? Here´s the recipe for delicious research: https://bit.ly/42vlpHm

We’re organizing a conference at @ijmonod.bsky.social in Paris, January 2026, in memory of M.P. Sheetz — pioneer in cell mechanics and mechanobiology, co-discoverer of kinesin, and founder of @mbisg.bsky.social. Join us to explore his legacy.

mikeinmemoriam.sciencesconf.org

Super excited that our group will be supported by an ERC Starting Grant!

In project "InfoFate" we will study how cells use information in dynamical, neighborhood & mechanical signals to make decisions.

We'll have PhD and Postdoc positions available, please get in touch if interested!

We are all super happy and proud to see our work on the function and evolution of the #cephalic #furrow published in @nature.com. Let me say a few things about the background and history of this work on the #Evolution_of_Morphogenesis (1/12)

📣 Now out in @physreve.bsky.social‬ as editors' suggestion: our theory on the role of different myosin II isoforms during cell migration. For standard parameters, A and B segregate to the front and the back, respectively. Yet for other parameter values, also oscillations are possible.

Very cool to see it out congratulations!!

The actin cortex acts as a mechanical memory of morphology in confined migrating cells - Nature Physics Cells often navigate through confined spaces. Now it is shown that cells retain a mechanical memory of previous confinement events, which makes them more efficient at migrating through narrow microenv...

Excited to share our new publication in Nature Physics about the mechanical memory of morphology in confined migrating cells by @kyohalie.bsky.social 🥳

Super fun collab with @davidbrueckner.bsky.social and @gcharras.bsky.social 👏🏻

Enjoy the reading www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Do you want to push the boundaries of science together with world-class supervisors and colleagues?

The ISTA-Fellowship Program offers fully funded two-year postdoctoral fellowships for highly qualified candidates.

Apply now to take your next career step at ISTA: https://bit.ly/4kfKBZx