Peter Lenart

Very excited that my final postdoctoral work is now online in Cell @cellpress.bsky.social.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Using 16 (!) cryo-EM structures, we uncovered how the three proteins coronin, cofilin and AIP1 work together to rapidly disassemble actin filaments.

See this? This = implanting mouse embryo. Usually this happens inside its mother and is invisible to us, but we can actually watch implantation ex vivo with the hope of understanding why implantation goes awry in embryos of older women. A 🧵...

So grateful for an amazing experience at BioMatter: From Cytoskeleton to Embryo, Arolla 2025. I loved sharing my work during my talk, was honored to receive the Best Poster Award, and had so many inspiring conversations with brilliant scientists. An unforgettable week in a truly beautiful place!

Three-Year Funded Postdoctoral Position to study organelle architecture in mammalian oocytes – Terret-Verlhac Lab, CIRB, Collège de France (Starting 2026).
For more information, please contact: marie-helene.verlhac@college-de-france.fr

Conserved nucleocytoplasmic density homeostasis drives cellular organization across eukaryotes Nature Communications - Cells can regulate their mass density. Here, the authors demonstrate how eukaryotes establish and maintain a lower density in the nucleus than in the cytoplasm via pressure...

FINALLY! Challenging to publish but we believe it is an important discovery: rdcu.be/eATFz

💚 Thanks to the team ‪@biswashere.bsky.social‬, Omar Muñoz, ✨Q✨ C. Hoege, B. Lorton, R. Nikolay ‪@matthewkraushar.bsky.social‬ @dshechter.bsky.social @gucklab.bsky.social @vasilyzaburdaev.bsky.social‬ 💚

MBL Announces Largest Ever Gift for Its Renowned Biological Education and Research Programs | Marine Biological Laboratory Cell Biology Researcher Mark Terasaki’s $25 Million Unrestricted Gift Will Support Operations and Infrastructure Contact: Samantha Cummis scummis@mbl.edu; 973.800.4119

We're thrilled to announce the largest private gift in our 137-year history: a $25 million unrestricted donation from MBL Whitman Scientist Mark Terasaki.

His extraordinary generosity will bolster our renowned research and education programs. 🔬

Learn more: bit.ly/452WL1m

🪼 How did the animal body plan evolve?

This ‘fundamental’ study in Clytia sheds light on how Wnt3 coordinates both gene expression and planar cell polarity during axis formation, offering key insights into the origins of morphogenesis.
buff.ly/e1Un958
#DevBio

Exciting news: our Board of Trustees has appointed @monicabettencourt.bsky.social as the CRG's new Director. Prof Bettencourt-Dias is expected to take up the post in 2026, replacing Dr. Luis Serrano, who will continue to maintain a research group at the institute.
www.crg.eu/en/news/moni...

Update on group picture.
“Clustered like chromosomes in metaphase - no cytoskeleton required, just a camera”
@plenart.bsky.social
@mpi-nat.bsky.social

From starfish to jellyfish to mammalian egg cells – watch the video (in German) to find out what awaits you at our “In the beginning was the egg” booth by @schuhlab.bsky.social & @plenart.bsky.social ‬at the Night of Science @ndw-goe.bsky.social. #ndwgoe
📍1st floor @mpsgoettingen.bsky.social

Honoured to present my work at the Fertility Conference in my dream city, Paris.
Huge thanks to @mhverlhac.bsky.social and @bokelab.bsky.social for organising such an inspiring event! Grateful to all the amazing contributors for their thought-provoking talks and discussions.

Very excited to share a new preprint by @ericneiva.bsky.social who developed a first-of-its-kind finite element method for simulating 3D cellular dynamics with coupled surface–bulk flows and signaling. A technical tour de force with broad applications in mechanobiology & beyond tinyurl.com/bdfhfke3

Cell state-specific cytoplasmic density controls spindle architecture and scaling Nature Cell Biology - Kletter et al. show that cell state-specific cytoplasmic density controls spindle architecture and scaling in neural differentiation, suggesting that the physical properties...

✨Thanks to amazing students @tobiaskletter.bsky.social, postdocs @biswashere.bsky.social & collaborators @vasilyzaburdaev.bsky.social‬ & ALMF @embl.org ✨

👉Cytoplasmic material properties control spindle architecture and scaling 👉 out today @natcellbio.nature.com rdcu.be/eqPr8

I’m excited to announce that my paper describing non-canonical mitotic mechanisms in the early mouse embryo is out in @science.org ! (link at end of 🧵)

✨We are looking for a PhD student interested in physical cell bio, imaging 🔬, biochemistry, #Xenopus 🐸 & #microtubules ✨

Join us @mpiib-berlin.mpg.de!

With great sadness and deep regret, we have to inform you that our department director and highly esteemed colleague Philippe Bastiaens @maxplanck.de passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on 15th of May.

Very happy to share the peer-reviewed version of our paper in which we study the formation and function of pair-wise and multi-way enhancer-promoter interactions in gene regulation (see thread below): www.nature.com/articles/s41...

June will be kicked off by Silvia Caballero from @imev-mer.fr on Thursday, June 5 at 2.15 pm (CET) (hosted by @plenart.bsky.social).

Cartoon of autonomous and light-modulated spwning cycles in Clytia IZ-D

Intriguing findings from our Sendai collaborators Ruka Kitsui and Ryusaku Deguchi. While C. hemispherica spawns at dawn, Clytia IZ-D species spawns at dusk. This is not triggered by dark but, unexpectedly, by light-mediated extension of an autonomously-running 20h cycle. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Du bist Tierpflegemeister*in der Fachrichtung Forschung und Klinik und bereit für den nächsten Karriereschritt? Dann bewirb dich bis zum 25. Mai am MPI-NAT!
Was du mitbringen solltest, was deine Aufgaben sind und wie du dich bewirbst, erfährst du hier: ⬇️
www.mpinat.mpg.de/15-25?c=2501...

With a heavy heart I have decided not to attend a meeting in the US this June. I can’t act as if things are normal when science, universities, dissent & truth are all under threat. And I feel I can’t attend when there are scientists who are not able to travel to the US without fear of arrest.

It's a sun star, Heliaster helianthus apparently

Starfish!

We’re excited to share our work where we investigated the mechanisms of chromosome motion by tracking all #chromosomes, mapping their interactions, and live cell karyotyping, using #AI based denoising, segmentation and registration, published in Nature Cell Biology.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Getting tissue stress from images is tough, and elastic tension sensors are a way to solve this. Still, the analysis is complex. Try our GUI gitlab.gwdg.de/betzlab_publ... implementing analytical solutions to obtain surface stresses AND shape parameters of beads and nuclei.

You are a biologist and want to get an idea why looking at intracellular active mechanics is important for cellular function? Check out our recent review preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2501.14538. We try to give an intuitive access, but also provide details in extensive toolboxes.

Attenuation of mosaic aneuploidy and erroneous first mitotic division of human embryos https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.05.647367v1

Once in a while #itisthecover !

This cover highlights the article PLK1 inhibition delays mitotic entry revealing changes to the phosphoproteome of mammalian cells early in division by M. Gobran, P. Lenart and colleagues. HeLa Kyoto cells treated with the PLK1 inhibitor BI2536 spend prolonged periods of time in a prophase-like state with condensed chromosomes. Cells stained with 5-SiR-Hoechst imaged on a spinning disk confocal microscope. Scientific image by Monica Gobran

Highlighted in Issue 7:
Lysosome-CDK4/6 co-targeting in cancer therapy
Algal spliceosome structure
Also:
Opposite synaptic plasticity effects of Ras isoforms
Novel biosensor for spatiotemporal dynamics of STING activation
Cover: @plenart.bsky.social and coworkers
www.embopress.org/toc/14602075...

Press release!