Lucas Anger

Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece, we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to relevant work to further inform our colleagues.

Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI (black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf. Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al. 2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA).

Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe.

Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
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📢 PhD Thesis defense

📅 November 26th
📍Institut Jacques Monod

Fanny Wodrascka ( @fanny-wodrascka.bsky.social @bladoux.bsky.social @rmmege.bsky.social ) will defend her PhD thesis "Mechanical control of epithelial cell extrusion via RhoA-dependent contractility "

➡️ buff.ly/f5VaVah

My new ImageJ / Fiji toolkit is out 🔥! The goal is to make image handling & visualization easy, with an intuitive interface! Install it on Fiji with the "Image Viewer" update site
#microscopy #ImageJ #FluorescenceFriday #microscopyMonday
imagej.net/plugins/imag...

Truly honoured and grateful to have received alongside other young researchers the prize "Grandes avancées françaises en biologie" from the @academiesciences.bsky.social for our paper on mechanical cell competition together with @luanger.bsky.social and S. Monfared www.nature.com/articles/s41...

1/ 🐣⚒️ To study mechanics, we need to apply prescribed forces - how can we do that in living tissues? I am @eigenp.bsky.social and in this thread I'll highlight our new approach for applying tension on epithelial tissues in vivo!

Happy to share the last version of our story @currentbiology.bsky.social on the role of interfacial tension in mechanical cell competition led by @leovalon.bsky.social and Alexis Matamoro Vidal
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Mechanobiology across timescales - Nature Reviews Physics This Review explores how cells sense and respond to mechanical signals across timescales. By integrating mechanosensing at membranes, mechanotransduction in the cytoplasm, and nuclear reprogramming, it reveals a role of temporal dynamics in tissue development and disease.

Mechanobiology across timescales

A Review by Bo Cheng, Moxiao Li, Min Lin, Hui Guo & Feng Xu ⚛️🧪
www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Quantum Josephson junction circuits and the dawn of artificial atoms - Nature Physics In 1985, experiments revealed the quantum behaviour of a macroscopic degree of freedom: the phase difference across a Josephson junction. The authors recount the history of this milestone for the development of superconducting quantum circuits.

John M. Martinis, Michel H. Devoret & John Clarke recount the history of their milestone discovery, which today won the Nobel Prize in Physics

go.nature.com/4gVswyS

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

Regulation of epithelial tissue homeostasis by active trans-epithelial transport Epithelia are intricate tissues whose function is intimately linked to mechanics. While mechanobiology has primarily focused on factors such as cell-generated contractility and mechanical properties o...

Happy to share our new study @ijmonod.bsky.social and @mpi-scienceoflight.bsky.social with C. Duclut and J. Prost. on forces generated by active fluid transport in epithelia and their role in tissue dynamics.
Congrats to Huiqiong Wu, G. Arkowitz and R. Chilupuri!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Make trains great again — for the sake of people and the planet As railways enter their third century of service, research must support their renaissance for more-sustainable travel that supports human development.

As railways enter their third century of service, research must support their renaissance for more-sustainable travel that supports human development

go.nature.com/3If7jTK

Equity in science is a beautiful lie — and I’m done pretending Science isn’t really moving towards equity; institutions are just perfecting the appearance of equity. We need to build an alternative system.

Science isn’t really moving towards equity; institutions are just perfecting the appearance of equity. We need to build an alternative system, says Dolors Armenteras

go.nature.com/4nzGhp9

This comment in @natnano.nature.com is well worth a read ⚛️🧪

Tianxiang Ma, Valeriia Grudtsyna, Robin V. B\"olsterli, Amin Doostmohammadi: Cellular Flow Architecture Exposes the Hidden Mechanics of Biological Matter https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.17974 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.17974 https://arxiv.org/html/2508.17974

📢 Institut Jacques Monod Seminar

📅 September 11th
📍 Institut Jacques Monod

Invited by @bladoux.bsky.social / @rmmege.bsky.social 's Lab , Stephanie Ellis ( @maxperutzlabs.bsky.social ) give the IJM Seminar "Understanding mosaic tissue dynamics through cell competition. "

➡️ buff.ly/V6LaKMz

📢 PhD Thesis defense

📅 September 11th
📍 Institut Jacques Monod

Andreas Schoenit @andreasschoenit.bsky.social ( @bladoux.bsky.social / @rmmege.bsky.social Lab) will defend his PhD thesis "Mechanical forces in cell competition and epidermal stratification"

More informations ➡️ buff.ly/yhtJMsu

GitHub - Julia-Eckert/3D_SurfProps: These MATLAB scripts determine the nematic orientation field on the entire surface of 3D tissues of arbitrary shape, based on z-stack images, identify topological d... These MATLAB scripts determine the nematic orientation field on the entire surface of 3D tissues of arbitrary shape, based on z-stack images, identify topological defects, and quantify signals of f...

Want to test your multicellular system?

I have created a GitHub repository, ‘3D_SurfProps’, where you can download the MATLAB codes of our 3D surface analysis method:
👉 github.com/Julia-Eckert...

Any questions, suggestions, or ideas for improvements? Please DM or email me.

Have fun testing!

Now published in @natcomms.nature.com! 🥳

👉 rdcu.be/eATn3

We developed image analysis tools to capture the nematic orientation field of 3D tissue surfaces. Tested on epithelial aggregates, zebrafish hearts, myoblasts on spheres & micro-vessels, we combined soft matter physics with exp. biology.

Cytoplasmic crowding acts as a porous medium reducing macromolecule diffusion Intracellular transport of macromolecules is crucial for the proper functioning of most cellular processes. Although intracellular crowding is known to strongly alter macromolecule mobility, how cytop...

To what extent does crowding modulate diffusion across the cytoplasm?
Thrilled to contribute to this study alongside O. Destrian, M. Chabanon, and B. Goyeau!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Thanks Benoit! 😊 This is also the byproduct of your support and mentorship, and I was glad to be part of it.
I'm really happy to share this prize with @andreasschoenit.bsky.social ! Unlike the cell competition, our work was steady and without fluctuations — I genuinely enjoyed every aspect of it.

Gupta, V. K., & Chaudhuri, O. (2022). Mechanical regulation of cell-cycle progression and division. Trends in Cell Biology, 32(9), 773–785. #EpithelialMechanicsReview linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii...

Lång, E., Lång, A., Blicher, P., Rognes, T., Dommersnes, P. G., & Bøe, S. O. (2024). Topology-guided polar ordering of collective cell migration. Science Advances #EpithelialMechanics doi.org/10.1126/scia...

Flocking and active solid behavior of epithelial cells in our new study in @pnas.org
Great work of Y. Shen, J. O'Byrne and
@andreasschoenit.bsky.social and collaboration with A. Maitra and R. Voituriez!
| PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Imaging 3D cell cultures with optical microscopy - Nature Methods This Review discusses current 2D and 3D microscopy methods for imaging three-dimensional cell cultures and emerging strategies to address key challenges.

3D cell cultures better mimic real tissues than 2D—but how do we image them? This review explores 2D & 3D microscopy techniques for studying 3D cultures, highlighting strengths, limitations, and future innovation needs. #microscopy #bioengineering @naturemethods.bsky.social

The picture shows the official flyer with more information about the conference, for example the scientific organizing committee and the invited speakers.

Exploring the Frontiers of #Mechanobiology

Mechanobiology Conference III, organized by Prof. @bladoux.bsky.social ( #MPZPM), takes place July 6–12, 2025 in Vietnam. Topics include cell signaling, biomaterials & more.

📅 Deadlines: Abstracts – Apr 30 | Reg – Jun 6

👉 icisequynhon.com/conferences/...

La compétition cellulaire : quand les forces mécaniques sculptent nos tissus La compétition cellulaire est un mécanisme de surveillance essentiel qui élimine les cellules indésirables, jouant un rôle clé dans le développement, la répon

#RésultatScientifique🔎 La force cachée des cellules

@bladoux.bsky.social et @rmmege.bsky.social et leurs collaborateurs révèlent que l’adhésion intercellulaire joue un rôle clé dans la compétition cellulaire, influençant le développement et la lutte contre le cancer.

What happens between cells with adhesion differences in crowded tissues? Mechanical cell competition!

Check the final version of our study to learn more about compression-independent cell elimination, interactions at tissue interfaces and the role of force transmission in that

tinyurl.com/4yw97bm3

Happy to share our new publication in
@naturematerials.bsky.social
on mechanical cell competition! Great collaboration between our CAM team, Chavrier's and Doostmohammadi's. Special congrats
@luanger.bsky.social, @andreasschoenit.bsky.social, Siavash Monfared! 🎉
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Measuring and manipulating mechanical forces during development - Nature Cell Biology This Review discusses the recent advances in experimental approaches to interrogate the mechanical forces that mediate tissue deformations during development, highlighting the insights afforded at bot...

Happy to share our review on methodology for measuring and manipulating mechanical forces with specific focus on developmental biology! Congrats to authors @clemvilleneuve.bsky.social @mccreery.bsky.social and hats off to the community for developing awesome tools www.nature.com/articles/s41...

GitHub - Sugimuralab/BayesianForceInference_GoogleColab Contribute to Sugimuralab/BayesianForceInference_GoogleColab development by creating an account on GitHub.

Bayesian Force Inference is now on GitHub!
Together with GetVertex, an ImageJ/Fiji plugin for extracting input data from skeletonized images, this enables code-free quantification of forces during epithelial development.
github.com/Sugimuralab/...