Fletcher Lab

Had fun at the MBL Physiology Course in Woods Hole!
Chunzi, Elizabeth & Kira led creative rotations:
• Trogocytosis is a mi(gh)t-y way to transfer
• Sync(ytium) or Swim: Which fusogen will reign supreme?
• Mucin Impossible: Eat up or get lost

Welcome to our new BioE Ph.D. students, Smiti and Michael Anne! @smitim.bsky.social

Congratulations Caitlin!!

Come to the Annual Fletcher Lab Artshow on Friday May 9th, 2025! We host this event yearly as an opportunity for folks to display their artwork, come together with wine and cheese, and admire artwork!

Come explore and be amazed on April 12 and 13 at the @exploratorium.bsky.social. This event is based upon work supported by the Center for Cellular Construction. #microscopy #Magnified

Congratulations to both Jared and Andres for passing their qualifying exams

Thanks to our collaborators: @gatesfoundation.bsky.social, @isaacbogoch.bsky.social, Spotlab, GH Labs, ISM, CERMEL, UHN, among others.

The NTDscope is a portable brightfield, darkfield, and fluorescence microscope used for the diagnosis of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). Check out our latest preprint: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

🌟Say hello to Dan Fletcher @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social, a bioengineer renowned for developing novel experimental approaches and microscopy tools with far-reaching impacts on our understanding of infectious diseases, immunology, and cancer biology. 1/

preLights in cell biology (February 2025) This article includes recent preLights posts that discuss preprints in the field of cell biology.Target cell tension regulates macrophage trogocytosis by Caitlin E. Cornell et al.Read the preLight.Vis...

preLights in cell biology (Feb 2025)

This article lists the recent @prelights.bsky.social posts that discuss #preprints in #cellbio. Featured #preLight by @fadelvalle.bsky.social covering work on macrophage trogocytosis from @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social.

journals.biologists.com/jcs/article/...

Some lab members and friends attended the #StandupforScience protest.

Dan Fletcher speaks in front of a banner that reads Schmidt Science Fellows

A group photo from the Science Leadership Program

“We have a role to play in making the world a better place.”

Thank you to #RhodesScholar Professor Dan Fletcher for hosting our partners Schmidt Science Fellows at UC, Berkeley for another year as part of the Science Leadership Program.
@fletcherlabucb.bsky.social 📷 @claudinegossett.bsky.social

Fun story from the Fletcher lab showing that surface crowding is a major impediment to cell-cell fusion and myoblasts reduce their surface crowding to improve fusion!

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

Target cell tension regulates macrophage trogocytosis Macrophages are known to engulf small membrane fragments, or trogocytose, target cells and pathogens, rather than fully phagocytose them. However, little is known about what causes macrophages to choo...

This supports the idea that target cell's biophysical properties regulate the decision to trogocytose instead of phagocytose, as Caitlin Cornell @fletcherlabucb.bsky.social proposed in their recent preprint: doi.org/10.1101/2024.12.02.626490

Check out our latest preprint where we show how you can improve automated detection of schistosomiasis by using images of multiple contrasts (brightfield and darkfield) acquired on a mobile microscope! www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Happy Lunar New Year! We hope the Lunar New Year brings you much health and happiness. #HappyLunarNewYear2025

Cell surface crowding is a tunable biophysical barrier to cell-cell fusion Cell-cell fusion is fundamental to developmental processes such as muscle formation, as well as to viral infections that cause pathological syncytia. An essential step in fusion is close membrane appo...

Check out our most recent paper about a previously under-appreciated crowding barrier to cell-cell fusion. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Felipe (@fadelvalle.bsky.social) did a fantastic job summarizing the main points and asking intriguing questions for our future next steps. Check it out!

Happy New Year! Let’s continue pushing the boundaries of science and knowledge

Using fluorescence anisotropy and theoretical modeling, we can now quantify how floppy or rigid molecules are when they're attached to surfaces. We tested it on DNA and red blood cell surface molecules! #biophysics #microscopy #DNA #cellbiology #anisotropy

Excited to share our latest paper: SurFlex microscopy! A new technique to measure the flexibility of surface-tethered biomolecules. Congrats to Aymeric, @sid592.bsky.social and @blenackmon.bsky.social! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

If you are attending #CellBio2024, be sure to attend our lab member's oral and poster presentations. @ascbiology.bsky.social

Kinetics and Optimality of Influenza A Virus Locomotion Studies of influenza A's unusual propulsion strategy suggest that drugs could target a critical protein.

Congrats Siddhansh for your newly published paper titled "Kinetics and Optimality of Influenza A Virus Locomotion."
journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...

At the beginning of the video, the macrophage is trogocytosing a giant unilamellar vesicle at low tension (0.27 mN/m). Pipette suction is applied and tension is increased to 3.68 mN/m and the macrophage begins to engulf the GUV. #macrophages #trogocytosis #GUV #biophysics

Do you find yourself curious about the eating habits of macrophages? Check out our new preprint to discover the biophysical principles that guide macrophage behavior.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Kinetics and optimality of influenza A virus locomotion Influenza A viruses (IAVs) must navigate through a dense extracellular mucus to infect airway epithelial cells. The mucous layer, composed of glycosylated biopolymers (mucins), presents sialic acid th...

Check out this new paper on influenza virus locomotion reveals a 'burnt-bridge' Brownian ratchet mechanism enabling directed motion through mucus.
Find out why Tamiflu may be a hit or miss and how to design a better drug! #influenza #virus www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

A really fun Chaudhuri Lab reunion in Boston, with special guest Dan Fletcher! 🥰

Special thanks to Kolade & @sungmin.bsky.social for the privilege of presenting at the Harvard Bioengineering seminar series yesterday. And glad they finally got to meet Dan, their “science grandpa!” 😂

Lab: Why aren't we on Bluesky?
Dan: Umm. I don't follow Bluesky.
Lab: But the rest of the world does. Scientists too.
Dan: I see. What's your point?
Lab: We should be on Bluesky. And join scientific discussions.
Dan: I'm more the silent type.
Lab: We'll run it.
Dan: Go for it!