Felix Campelo

We are hiring ! Interested in understanding how neuronal cell diversity arises? Come and join us @upf.edu for a #PhD #FPI fellowship

September in preprints – Cell biology edition - preLights

Happy October 1st!

A good time to share another #CellBio #preprint reading list put together by a team of preLighters: @sristi.bsky.social, Matthew Davies, @vibhasingh.bsky.social, @fadelvalle.bsky.social & Barbora Knotkova.

Check out their picks ⬇️👀
prelights.biologists.com/prelists/sep...

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

intracellular mechanics ! in Barcelona in February (when its freezing anywherelse) !

Check out this new Roadmap, a fantastic team effort by a consortium of ER researchers. Glad we could provide the space for this synthesis, which came out of discussions at a fruitful meeting, see below:

It was a great pleasure to work on this paper. What started as a small meeting in January this year resulted in this beautiful piece of work.

Many thanks Adrien! Indeed, while there are still lots of unknowns (which makes it quite an interesting topic), I believe there is a lot of hidden secretion regulatory layers to be discovered 😃 Any feedback (mechanochemical or not 🤣) will be very much appreciated!

Towards a unified framework for the function of endoplasmic reticulum exit sites - Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology Endoplasmic reticulum exit sites (ERES) are specialized ER subdomains that regulate the export of secreted cargo. This Roadmap explores how ERES integrate biochemical and mechanical signals to coordinate trafficking and proposes a multidisciplinary strategy to investigate their function, including in disease.

ER exit sites are dynamic ER subdomains that integrate signals, reshape membranes and steer secretion. Twelve groups in the field came together to map their diversity, regulation, unanswered questions and future directions.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Join us for the first @embo.org meeting on Intracellular mechanics and organelle mechanobiology! Registrations are open, submit your abstract by November 14: we have plenty of slots for short talks! #EMBOMechanobio

And many, many thanks to those who contributed to this work, from everyone at @icfo.eu and Paris labs, to Anabel-Lise and @pereroca.bsky.social at @ibecbarcelona.eu 🙏

And another recent preprint on bioRxiv from Domenico Russo and Ricardo Rizzo' labs showed that matrix stiffness stimulates secretion via a Src–FAK–AMPK–GBF1 pathway, further supporting the view of the Golgi as a central mechanoresponsive organelle: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... 💪🥞

So we propose that the Golgi is not a "passive" trafficking hub, but it actively adapts its membrane properties and function to extracellular mechanical cues. This Golgi-based mechanoadaptation could be key in contexts like cancer invasion or fibrosis, so much more to come!

I think this may "close" a functional feedback loop: external forces/focal adhesion establishment → tubulin acetylation + DAG/PKD + Golgi tension changes → Transport carrier biogenesis at the Golgi → increased exocytosis to focal adhesion-proximal hotspots → feedback to adhesion & spreading.

And finally, what I found really cool, is that by inhibiting/blocking Golgi export (in different pharmacological or genetic ways) impaired efficient cell spreading.

Why does this matter? Previous seminal work showed that microtubule acetylation is sufficient to increase Golgi export, while DAG recruits PKD to drive carrier fission. Together, we propose these act as a mechanotransduction axis linking outside-in mechanical cues to Golgi-based secretion.

Are the mechanical properties of the Golgi also altered?Halo-Flipper FLIM revealed that extracellular forces increase membrane tension/lipid packing at the Golgi membranes. This correlated with both increased microtubule acetylation and modulation of Golgi DAG content, two key signaling steps.

So, as Golgi lovers, we asked this: Can extracellular mechanics control Golgi-based secretion? By using cell spreading assays, modulating substrate stiffness & applying equibiaxial stretch, we found that forces appear to increase the number of Golgi-derived secretory carriers.

Cells constantly experience mechanical cues from their environment. While focal adhesions & the nucleus are well-known mechanosensors, whether intracellular organelles adapt to mechanics and adapt to external forces has been less clear.

This has been a great collaboration between us at
@icfo.eu and Stéphanie Miserey (Perez team,
@institutcurie.bsky.social) and Jean-Baptiste Manneville (Paris Cité). The real heroes have been my postdoc Javier Vera Lillo as well as Stéphanie and JB's PhD student Chandini Bhaskar Naidu 👏👏

Mechanical forces stimulate Golgi export Human cells face a wide range of external mechanical stimuli that vary with cell type, state, and pathological conditions. The rapidly growing field of mechanobiology investigates how cells sense and ...

🧵 I've been meaning to write a #Skytorial on our recently posted prepring in which we show evidence that the Golgi 🥞 is a mechanoresponsive organelle. Extracellular mechanical forces also tune Golgi export capacity! 👉 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I think this closes a functional feedback loop: external forces/focal adhesion establishment → tubulin acetylation + DAG/PKD + Golgi tension changes → Transport carrier biogenesis at the Golgi → increased exocytosis to focal adhesion-proximal hotspots → feedback to adhesion & spreading.

And finally, what I found really cool, is that by inhibiting/blocking Golgi export (in different pharmacological or genetic ways) impaired efficient cell spreading.

Why does this matter? Previous seminal work showed that microtubule acetylation is sufficient to increase Golgi export, while DAG recruits PKD to drive carrier fission. Together, we propose these act as a mechanotransduction axis linking outside-in mechanical cues to Golgi-based secretion.

Are the mechanical properties of the Golgi also altered?Halo-Flipper FLIM revealed that extracellular forces increase membrane tension/lipid packing at the Golgi membranes. This correlated with both increased microtubule acetylation and modulation of Golgi DAG content, two key signaling steps.

So, as Golgi lovers, we asked this: Can extracellular mechanics control Golgi-based secretion? By using cell spreading assays, modulating substrate stiffness & applying equibiaxial stretch, we found that forces appear to increase the number of Golgi-derived secretory carriers.

yoda from star wars is saying `` may the force be with you ! '' ALT: yoda from star wars is saying `` may the force be with you ! ''

Cells constantly experience mechanical cues from their environment. While focal adhesions & the nucleus are well-known mechanosensors, whether intracellular organelles adapt to mechanics and adapt to external forces has been less clear.

This has been a great collaboration between us at @icfo.eu and Stéphanie Miserey (Perez team, @institutcurie.bsky.social ) and Jean-Baptiste Manneville (Paris Cité). The real heroes are my postdoc Javier Vera Lillo as well as Stéphanie and JB's PhD student Chandini Bhaskar Naidu 👏

This is already This Thursday (25th September)! Join us at the @focalplane.bsky.social features #MembraneTrafficking for lots of amazing microscopy and interesting membrane biology! @franbottanelli.bsky.social @ishier.bsky.social @biologists.bsky.social

Check out our latest review on Basement Membranes!

Including scaled representation of protein & glycan components 😊

@mcrcellmatrix.bsky.social

@focalplane.bsky.social @ishier.bsky.social @franbottanelli.bsky.social