Alejandro Torres-Sánchez

Many thanks for the visit, Markus!

Tenure-track Position in Biophysics at Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Physics Location: Pittsburgh, PA Open Date: Sep 19, 2025 Description The Department of Physics at Carnegie Mellon University invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position in biophysics. The appointment is intended to be at the Assistant Professor level, but exceptional candidates at a higher level may also be considered. We seek outstanding candidates with a strong record in cellular and subcellular biophysics. Topics of particular interest include, but are not limited to, uncovering how key characteristics of living systems arise from the interplay between supramolecular cellular structures, how the emergent cellular circuitry defines goals and enables robust decision making, and how metabolic resources are allocated. This encompasses understanding of how information is learned, stored, transduced, and processed across subcellular structures. Applicants with theoretical, data science, or experimental backgrounds within biological physics are encouraged to apply. The ideal candidate will strengthen and extend research programs of current biophysics faculty in the Department of Physics and collaborate with broader life science activities across many departments at CMU and the wider Pittsburgh area. More details on Interfolio: https://apply.interfolio.com/174360

I am super excited to announce that we have a tenure-track faculty position in biophysics open in the Department of Physics at Carnegie Mellon! 🧪

Interfolio link: apply.interfolio.com/174360

PLEASE, share widely across the blue skies!

Let me briefly explain what we're looking for:

1/10

Please allow me to introduce... our new preprint 🎉 Together with Michael Zhao, Anna Erzberger and Alexander Aulehla, we investigate pattern formation due to aggregation in confined systems.

You can find it at arxiv.org/abs/2509.08533

@michaelzhao.bsky.social @erzbergerlab.bsky.social

Febrile temperature enhances Plasmodium falciparum cytoadhesion by disrupting the endothelial glycocalyx Fever, a universal host defense in infection and inflammation, paradoxically contributes to neurological complications in malaria. While febrile temperatures enhance the expression of parasite virulen...

Have you ever wondered what happens with your microvessels after exposure to high temperature in fever? In this preprint former postdoc (ans soon to be PI) Viola Introini found that high temperatures cleaves glycocalyx , having severe consequences in malaria www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...

Congrats!!!

Very excited to share - the ERC StG is a game-changer for us 🙏 We're going to learn the rules for timing control across cell types in the embryo and we think we can tune them too 🎛️ ⏳📈- reach out if you’d like to be involved !

Mechanistic origins of temperature scaling in the early embryonic cell cycle - Nature Communications Researchers reveal mechanisms underlying non-Arrhenius temperature scaling of early embryonic cell cycle timing, using modeling, cross-species data, and reconstituted oscillations in frog egg extract.

The theory was part of my PhD work at KU Leuven with @lendertgelens.bsky.social, experimental work by colleagues in Leuven, the Yang lab (U Michigan) and Ferrell lab (Stanford).
Find the paper here:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We are searching for an enthusiastic scientist to join our team and establish annual killifish as a model system for early developmental biology and biophysics! @embl.org @embldbunit.bsky.social

Apply here:
embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/EMBL/job/Hei...

Please re-post 🙏

Papafilippou, E., Baldauf, L., Charras, G., Kabla, A. J., & Bonfanti, A. (2025). Interplay of damage and repair in the control of epithelial tissue integrity in response to cyclic loading. Current opinion in cell biology, 94, 102511. #EpithelialMechanicsReview
buff.ly/Qzj8OWl

Plasmodium falciparum egress disrupts endothelial junctions and activates JAK-STAT signaling in a microvascular 3D blood-brain barrier model Nature Communications - Here the authors show that Plasmodium falciparum egress products disrupt endothelial barrier and activate JAK-STAT and interferon type response in a 3D blood-brain barrier...

We are happy to show one ourt first exciting papers. We have developed a blood-brain barrier model to study the disruptive effects caused by the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum.

First, congratulations to the fearless @liviapiatti.bsky.social and @alinabatzi.bsky.social

rdcu.be/ezBl7

Out now! Our very first paper@crick.ac.uk, an impressive feat by @tobyandrews.bsky.social where we show how a developing heart grows and scales up its morphological complexity to keep beating...an excellent summary below ⬇️
www.cell.com/developmenta...

Here’s why your blood vessels don’t burst under pressure Cells lining the blood vessels reorganize their inner structures to handle stressful boosts in pressure.

Our study on endothelial mechanics made the news! 🤩

Super nice and clear article on our findings and their implications.
www.snexplores.org/article/how-...

Turing Patterns Turn Up in a Tiny Crystal | Quanta Magazine The mechanism behind leopard spots and zebra stripes also appears to explain the patterned growth of a bismuth crystal, extending Alan Turing’s 1952 idea to the atomic scale.

Between his code-breaking work during World War II and his death in 1954, Alan Turing proposed a mechanism for pattern formation that has been identified in the arrangement of bacteria, stripes on seashells and even the distribution of human settlements.

Congrats @pauguillamat.bsky.social!

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

New Oxford research reveals Uber’s algorithmic pricing leaves drivers A new study from researchers in the University of Oxford’s Department of Computer Science has found that Uber’s use of dynamic pricing has led to higher fares for passengers and lower earnings for

A study from @compscioxford.bsky.social finds Uber’s dynamic pricing leads to higher fares for riders, lower earnings for drivers, and more revenue for the company.

Read more ⬇️

Almost all Nobel Prizes are awarded for work that is exploratory, or absolutely basic science with no obvious commercial or medical benefit.

You cannot predict where advancements come from, so you have to invest in science and scientists.

Targeted (corporate) science investment will never do this.

It has been a pretty intense and busy week (both for students and trainers) at the @embo.org @embl.org @barcelonacollaboratorium.com practical course 'Computational Modelling of Multicellular Systems' 🤓💻

Looking forward to future editions!
@epimechfc.bsky.social @i2sysbio.es

Sketch of membrane-enclosed compartment with particles on its surface, which interact with an adjacent structure

🧵 🧪 1/ Hi! I’m excited to share our latest work, now on arXiv:

Repulsive particle interactions at cellular interfaces enable selective information processing (arxiv.org/abs/2506.14739)

Where we explore how the physical properties of living systems can help cells process spatial information.

Here our latest work on how morphogens trigger tissue phase transitions to tune their own length-scales and time-scales - An exciting collaboration with @zhvas.bsky.social @dianakhorom.bsky.social Bernat Corominas-Murtra and heroic experiments by the incredible @cami-autorino.bsky.social @embl.org

Very happy to see our latest collab out on bioarxiv - check out this thread by @cami-autorino.bsky.social

🔔 Proud to share the preprint of my PhD work in the Petridou group @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social @embl.org ✨

“A closed feedback between tissue phase transitions and morphogen gradients drives patterning dynamics” 🐟 🔁 📶

🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

#devbio #biophysics

🧵⤵️

Want to help shape a young & dynamic research group while using #organoids to ask how #chromatin dynamics, #cell_state, & the #exposome contribute to #neuroendocrine #cancer? Apply for a postdoc position in our lab @embl.org Barcelona! #cancer_models.
embl.wd103.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/EMBL/d...

📢 Fresh off the press and featuring new exciting experiments! 🧪
We show how glycolytic activity instructs germ layer proportions through regulation of Nodal and Wnt signaling - happy to finally share this 😊
doi.org/10.1016/j.st...

B2B with @jesseveenvliet.bsky.social lab: doi.org/10.1016/j.st... 🤩

The role of extracellular matrix viscoelasticity in development and disease - npj Biological Physics and Mechanics npj Biological Physics and Mechanics - The role of extracellular matrix viscoelasticity in development and disease

Thrilled to share our new review article!
“The role of extracellular matrix viscoelasticity in development and disease” written together with Olivia Courbot is now published in npj Biological Physics and Mechanics. www.nature.com/articles/s44...
#ECM #Mechanobiology #DevelopmentalBiology

How do hydraulic forces impact critical processes such as tissue integrity, cell fate decisions, and embryo development?

Hydraulics studies how fluids move and exert forces.

Join me in exploring few articles on hydraulics in #EpithelialMechanics

🎉 Excited to share our new work: “Adhesion-driven tissue rigidification triggers epithelial cell polarity”, now on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social !

A huge thank you to @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social, Bernat, @crisp-c.bsky.social, Adrián, and everyone involved! 🙌

🧵⤵️

...and If this piqued your interest, we have fully-funded postdoc positions (4+2 years) available! Join the dynamic, collaborative community @crick.ac.uk with access to top-tier technology platforms and an outstanding postdoc training program.
crick.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/External/job...

Find out how video games helped scientists visualise limb development.

Laura Aviñó-Esteban, PhD student at EMBL Barcelona and first author of a recently published study, explains how video games helped her solve the problem of fragmented limb dev. visualisation. 💻🧪

www.embl.org/news/science...

Function doesn’t just follow form—it shapes it.

This study, led by Chris from @rashmi-priya.bsky.social's lab, is also the first work from our lab at @embl.org, with beautiful simulations by @dsantosolivan.bsky.social.

Check it out 👇