Benoit Ladoux

A photo of the Matterhorn rising above an Alpine landscape. The colours are a little washed out, but do not appear artificially tinted

Ahead of tomorrow’s #NobelPrize announcement, I went on a deep dive in search of the most obscure physics Nobel Prizes in history. That means it's time for a thread on...🧵

PHYSICS NOBEL PRIZES YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF – PART 1

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A small primer on the #NobelPrize awarded to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi today. This prize was for combining two separate fields of immunology research - genetic research on IPEX and immunology research of regulatory T cells (#Tregs), with enormous impact on biology/medicine

Happy to share that my PhD has finally taken the shape of a paper! ✨

Huge thanks to all authors, especially @davidbrueckner.bsky.social & @ehannezo.bsky.social for leading the modeling and @raimonsunyer.bsky.social & @xaviertrepat.bsky.social for their invaluable supervision.

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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/...

📣 Last chance to apply!
Applications for our URO program close tomorrow, October 1st.

Don't miss this opportunity:
mattertolife.maxplanckschools.org/uro-research...

👉 Funded 10-week research internship
👉 Learn from esteemed scientists
👉 No prior research experience required

Mechano-osmotic signals control chromatin state and fate transitions in pluripotent stem cells - Nature Cell Biology McCreery, Stubb et al. show that mechano-osmotic changes in the nucleus induce general transcriptional repression and prime chromatin for cell fate transitions by relieving repression of specific differentiation genes.

How do #stemcells integrate information to coordinate fate decisions? Delighted to finally see our work showing how growth factors regulate the mechano-osmotic state of the #nucleus and #chromatin to control #pluripotency exit out! www.nature.com/articles/s41... see 🧵 👇

Can pressure gradients persist over long timescales in animal cells? We induced intracellular pressure gradients and examined the resulting flows in single cells. We reveal surprisingly long lasting pressure gradients.

More here: elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

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...

Grata, A., & Levayer, R. (2025). Epithelial cell extrusion at a glance. Journal of Cell Science, 138(8), #EpithelialMechanicsReview doi.org/10.1242/jcs....

Indeed, fantastic job Dr. Tim Klingberg! Big thanks to @lennarthilbert.bsky.social for coming over to Erlangen @fau.de for the defense and for all continued years of collaboration that led to this!

Exciting science in Leipzig at the Physics of Cancer Meeting.
conference.uni-leipzig.de/poc/2025/

Tipsy bats and perfect pasta: Ig Nobels celebrate ‘improbable’ research The annual awards are a celebration of weird but thought-provoking science.

IG Nobel Prize in #Physics 2025 to @mpipks.bsky.social researchers for elucidating the phase behaviour of cacio e pepe sauce. The work highlights how physics can also be applied to solve daily-life problems!

nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03045-0

Out today. 🙏 again to everyone for this wonderful piece of work, in particular to Aurelie @aurhin.bsky.social Chase @chasebolt.bsky.social and Brent @homeobox.bsky.social. 🙏 also to the Harris lab @fish4walking.bsky.social and @neilshubin.bsky.social @biology-unige.bsky.social @college-de-france.fr

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

Forces at Play: emerging themes in Mechanobiology - In memoriam of Pr. Michael Sheetz,
In Paris,  at the Institut Jacques Monod,  from January 19th to January 21st 2026.

The registration is now open, and the rates are quite low.

Dead line: end of November

mikeinmemoriam.sciencesconf.org

SCHEPHERD: A universal platform for high-throughput, high-resolution, and programmable control of cell behavior through bioelectric stimulation Spanning frogs, fish, and humans, direct-current (DC) bioelectric cues play critical roles beyond neuro-muscular function, such as modulating morphogenesis, immune response, and healing through electr...

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

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...

⚠️ #Gaza: 83% de civils parmi les tués ; 75% de civils parmi les prisonniers.
• À partir des données de la Direction du Renseignement militaire israélien, @theguardian.com & le magasine israélien
@972mag.com révèlent ces chiffres terrifiants, sans aucune comparaison possible avec d'autres guerres:

🔥 "Gaza brûle !" annonce fièrement ce matin le ministre de la Défense Israël Katz, qui confirme le début de l'offensive terrestre sur Gaza-ville, avec l'engagement de 2 divisions (environ 30.000 hommes). Quelques données factuelles pour y voir clair, dans le flot des informations du moment:

Energy deficiency selects crowded live epithelial cells for extrusion - Nature Crowded epithelial cells with the least energy and membrane potential are selected for extrusion.

Nature research paper: Energy deficiency selects crowded live epithelial cells for extrusion

go.nature.com/42tmu2l

Hoffmann, L. A., Carenza, L. N., Eckert, J., & Giomi, L. (2022). Theory of defect-mediated morphogenesis. Science advances, 8(15), eabk2712. #EpithelialMechanics
buff.ly/wUYJE0s

Computational image analyst (m/f/d) The Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine in Münster, Germany, has an opening for a

My lab @mpi-muenster.bsky.social is looking for a computational biologist with a passion for imaging and spatial biology. A staff scientist position with long-term perspective! Apply and spread the word 🙏 jobs.mpi-muenster.mpg.de/jobposting/0...

Flagellar gliding in choanoflagellates Freire-Delgado and Brunet discover a new mode of cell motility in choanoflagellates, the closest relatives of animals. Under mild confinement, choanoflagellate move over surfaces without cell deformat...

New short paper from our lab @currentbiology.bsky.social, in which we discover of a new mode of cell motility for choanoflagellates: flagellar gliding. www.cell.com/current-biol... - A 🧵

The complex microscopic dynamics of cells in high-density epithelial tissues Epithelial tissues line the surfaces of vital organs and are often densely packed in a disordered, mechanically arrested state, referred to as jammed or glassy state. While collective migration at low...

Very happy to share our new study from CAM team @ijmonod.bsky.social and @mpi-scienceoflight.bsky.social (MPZPM) on the unanticipated “hidden fluidity” in jammed epithelia. Congrats to Yuan Shen and great collaboration with Walter Kob.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Hydrodynamics of Cooperation and Self-Interest in a Two-Population Occupation Model Socioeconomic systems, where individualistic and altruistic agents coexist and interact, can be analytically characterized through state-of-the-art tools from active matter at the hydrodynamics scale.

🤔Altruism versus selfishness: impact on collective dynamics?
journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...

📢 PhD Thesis defense

📅 September 11th
📍 Institut Jacques Monod

Tomorrow, Andreas Schoenit @andreasschoenit.bsky.social will defend his PhD thesis "Mechanical forces in cell competition and epidermal stratification"

➡️ buff.ly/yhtJMsu

Very nice work! Congrats.

Erlangen?

Which city is the best for Cytoskeleton research?
Dresden? Barcelona? Cambridge ? Noooo ... you all know its Paris, right? 😎
Registering to the annual meeting on Friday 14th of November is now open:
pcd2025.sciencesconf.org
Keynote speeches by @carter-lab.bsky.social and Verena Ruprecht !

Tuning collagen nonlinear mechanics with interpenetrating networks drives adaptive cellular phenotypes in three dimensions This work demonstrates that changes in the nonlinear elasticity of collagen in hybrid networks tunes cell-matrix interactions.

Tuning collagen nonlinear mechanics with interpenetrating networks drives adaptive cellular phenotypes in three dimensions | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...