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Claire Dessalles

@clairedessalles.bsky.social

Postdoc @RouxLab.bsky.social investigating topological defects and morphogenesis. PhD was on tensile stresses and endothelial cells.

1,487 Followers  |  1,035 Following  |  30 Posts  |  Joined: 13.11.2023
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Posts by Claire Dessalles (@clairedessalles.bsky.social)

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a drawing of a stick figure next to a soap box ALT: a drawing of a stick figure next to a soap box

Saw a few papers recently in CNS injury using transgenic lines to target 'pericytes' in the CNS & broad markers that are not specific, also label fibroblasts - imprecise tools & language = assigning functions in fibrosis to pericytes when other cells like fibroblasts are primarily involved 1/4

26.02.2026 14:26 β€” πŸ‘ 22    πŸ” 8    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 1
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Espadas, J., Souza, D. P., Hakala, M., GarcΓ­a-Arcos, J. M., Tran, J., Kumar, A., Marcuello, C., Merino, A., ..., Toret, C. P., & Roux, A. (2025). Molecular basis for cellular compartmentalization by an ancient membrane fission mechanism. bioRxiv. #EpithelialMechanics
buff.ly/OQv9qMw

06.02.2026 11:01 β€” πŸ‘ 8    πŸ” 7    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Glad to see this project out! Huge effort of all and in particular Guillaume for the 3D segmentation of cells. πŸ‘

If you are interested in how cells pack themselves in 3D, please check it out πŸ‘€ πŸ‘‡

20.01.2026 11:04 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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How does a ball of cells become an embryo? Genes matterβ€”but physics (forces, geometry, topology) drives self-organization. HervΓ© Turlier's research vision on the physics of embryogenesisπŸ‘‡
shorturl.at/761x9

#Embryogenesis #Biophysics #Morphogenesis
@college-de-france.fr @cnrsbiologie.bsky.social

20.01.2026 10:16 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Multiscale curvature!

20.01.2026 10:47 β€” πŸ‘ 8    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Analysis of 3D epithelial tissue packing reveals correlated patterns of cell height and skewing https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.01.14.699560v1

15.01.2026 20:46 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Cells can sense the geometry of their environment, from tiny subcellular features to whole-tissue patterns. How can we engineer environments to systematically probe these responses?

🧡 I'm @lhinderling.bsky.social from @olivierpertz.bsky.social lab, let’s do a short tour on microfabrication!

14.12.2025 08:08 β€” πŸ‘ 73    πŸ” 30    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 2
Introduction to CellProfiler - by a biologist, for biologists!
YouTube video by CellMorphoJSero Introduction to CellProfiler - by a biologist, for biologists!

If you or your trainees are just getting started with image analysis of cells & are #CellProfiler -curious, here is a fairly thorough walk-through demo I did recently. Loading files, extracting metadata (fun with Regex!), identifying objects, measuring, filtering, QC, exporting:
youtu.be/fO5nJdhj_7I

04.12.2025 12:37 β€” πŸ‘ 82    πŸ” 33    πŸ’¬ 4    πŸ“Œ 0
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Exciting new #Zebrafish research from the #WeinsteinLab, led by Jong Park!
β€œSpecialized gas-exchange endothelium of the zebrafish gill” β€”

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Amazing to see red blood cells moving through the gills! Don’t forget to check out the supplemental movies ;-)

02.12.2025 22:48 β€” πŸ‘ 2219    πŸ” 327    πŸ’¬ 35    πŸ“Œ 21
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New preprint! Do you like ocean waves? We found similar waves on bacterial colonies! We found that this collective behavior, known as rippling, is nothing but surface waves on an active nematic. @princeton.edu @mpipks.bsky.social @ub.edu @icreacommunity.bsky.social

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

02.12.2025 20:01 β€” πŸ‘ 140    πŸ” 45    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 3
ICREAs Fitxa - ICREA Something went wrong

Super excited to start as an ICREA Research Professor at the University of Barcelona! Really happy to join fantastic colleagues at @icreacommunity.bsky.social and @ub.edu.

www.icrea.cat/community/ic...

02.12.2025 18:53 β€” πŸ‘ 36    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 5    πŸ“Œ 0
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02.12.2025 15:41 β€” πŸ‘ 17    πŸ” 5    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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πŸ“’Internships on cellular nematics!

πŸ”¬Come for the pretty images, stay for the cool physics: each project combines in vitro experiments with advanced microscopy and image analysis.

πŸ“§Feel free to DM or email me with any questions.

02.12.2025 15:15 β€” πŸ‘ 14    πŸ” 15    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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New paper from the @rouxlab.bsky.social on Nature Communications! We study how membrane tension is spatially organized in cells. Using the mechanosensitive probe Flipper-TR to visualize tension across the plasma membrane of adherent cells and to dissect the conditions needed for a gradient to happen

27.11.2025 14:14 β€” πŸ‘ 83    πŸ” 32    πŸ’¬ 6    πŸ“Œ 2
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Tissue stress measurements with Bayesian Inversion Stress Microscopy Cells within biological tissue are constantly subjected to dynamic mechanical forces. Measuring the internal stress of tissues has proven crucial for our understanding of the role of mechanical forces...

Tissue stress measurements β€” our latest preprint is out: arxiv.org/abs/2512.00550
(publication coming soon!)
Fantastic work by the three musketeers β€” @luanger.bsky.social, @andreasschoenit.bsky.social and @fanny-wodrascka.bsky.social β€” in collaboration with P. Marcq!

02.12.2025 11:15 β€” πŸ‘ 23    πŸ” 10    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 1
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Molecular basis for cellular compartmentalization by an ancient membrane fission mechanism The emergence of cell compartmentalization depends on membrane fission to create the endomembrane compartments. In eukaryotes, membrane fission is commonly executed by ESCRT-III, a protein complex con...

New preprint from the lab!!πŸŽ‰
We show that Asgard archaea ESCRT-III proteins can trigger membrane fission and reveal its molecular mechanism, offering clues to how these cells may have built internal compartments. But do these organisms even have these compartments?
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

01.12.2025 09:09 β€” πŸ‘ 81    πŸ” 32    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 9
MΓ©tiers de la physique

Vous faites des Γ©tudes de physique mais vous ne savez pas quel mΓ©tier faire ? J'ai rΓ©digΓ© pour la SociΓ©tΓ© franΓ§aise de physique @sfp-physique.bsky.social une description de nombreux mΓ©tiers accessibles, Γ  travers les tΓ©moignages de celles et ceux qui les exercent.
www.metiersdelaphysique.fr

01.12.2025 09:01 β€” πŸ‘ 35    πŸ” 21    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 5
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Hi, I’m David BrΓΌckner @davidbrueckner.bsky.social.

I’ll take you through how cells in a tissue can use information distributed by biochemical gradients to make decisions, and how we can measure such positional information.

buff.ly/RFxVeHh

15.11.2025 08:00 β€” πŸ‘ 59    πŸ” 16    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 1
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Active nematic pumps | PNAS Microfluidics involves the manipulation of flows at the microscale, typically requiring external power sources to generate pressure gradients. Alte...

Microfluidic pumping with active nematics! Self-organized and self-sustained. No external pumps.

@pnas.org @ub.edu

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

#ActiveMatter #Microfluidics #SoftMatter

12.11.2025 19:20 β€” πŸ‘ 33    πŸ” 13    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0
Main - Cell Dynamics and Fragmentation Lab The Cell Dynamics and Fragmentation lab at We study how single cells move and fragment in complex environments using microfluidics. We bring tools and concep...

Launching celldynamicslab.com, the homepage of our new group at EPFL working on cell fragmentation, membrane and cortex mechanics, FLIM imaging, and microfluidics tools. MSc/PhD or postdocs interested in quantitative cell biology are welcome to reach out. We're also hiring a lab manager in 2026!

11.11.2025 17:10 β€” πŸ‘ 74    πŸ” 35    πŸ’¬ 14    πŸ“Œ 1

Amazing story 😍
Just scan through it. Sophisticate, delicate and elegant πŸ’₯
Will read it in details again when time allowsπŸ˜‹

28.10.2025 18:43 β€” πŸ‘ 12    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0
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Really excited to present the results of a fantastic collaboration with Jesse Veenvliet @jesseveenvliet.bsky.social @mpi-cbg.de @poldresden.bsky.social 🀩

We find a unique mechanism for body axis elongation in mammals, different from other vertebrate species

➑️ www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

28.10.2025 08:24 β€” πŸ‘ 142    πŸ” 47    πŸ’¬ 6    πŸ“Œ 3
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Borges, A., Miranda-Rodriguez, J. R., Ceccarelli, A., Ventura, G., Sedzinski, J., Lopez-Schier, H., & Chara, O. (2025). ForSys: non-invasive stress inference from time-lapse microscopy. iScience, 28, 113685. #EpithelialMechanics
buff.ly/jQ96TCK

24.10.2025 07:02 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 4    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

If you’re applying to your dream lab for an internship/PhD/postdoc, always send a second email 1-2 weeks after the first one if you don’t hear back.

I promise we will be grateful rather than annoyed. My email inbox is a disaster and I’m quite junior - and very few of us have secretarial support

04.10.2025 05:47 β€” πŸ‘ 166    πŸ” 49    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 3
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New preprint from the lab! We discovered a transient fluidization in the basal region of human forebrains by tracking microdroplets in cerebral organoids.This β€œbasal fluidization”, absent in gorilla and mouse, may contribute to greater surface expansion in human forebrains
1/
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

08.10.2025 13:05 β€” πŸ‘ 89    πŸ” 35    πŸ’¬ 3    πŸ“Œ 3
Frequency dependence of fast-lifetime FLIM and fits for C2C12 cells.

Frequency dependence of fast-lifetime FLIM and fits for C2C12 cells.

Fluorescence lifetime estimation: a practical approach using Flipper-TR FLIM by Juan Manuel Garcia-Arcos and team: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

26.09.2025 13:29 β€” πŸ‘ 16    πŸ” 5    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

An incredibly comprehensive and meticulous study of Flipper-TR lifetime analysis to make your membrane tension measurements using Flipper-TR more robust and reliable.

Thanks to @juanmagararc.bsky.social and @rouxlab.bsky.social for this very valuable resource!

07.10.2025 08:21 β€” πŸ‘ 6    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

All you've ever wanted to know about FLIM analysis (and its application in Flipper-TR)!πŸ˜±πŸ€©πŸ”¬

07.10.2025 13:53 β€” πŸ‘ 4    πŸ” 2    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
Figure 2 - Gene expression patterning and transcriptional profiles in hydrogel-grown gastruloids. (A) Representative immunofluorescence images of gastruloids at 120 h. Gastruloids were grown in standard culture conditions (Ctrl, no hydrogel) or embedded in hydrogels with increasing concentrations (0.7 mM, 0.8 mM and 1.0 mM) at 96 h post-seeding. Nuclei (blue), BRA (purple) and SOX2 (yellow) are labeled. (B,C) Normalized expression profiles of SOX2 (B) and BRA (C) along the AP axis, demonstrating consistent expression patterns across conditions. (D) Principal component analysis of bulk RNA-seq experiments (three replicates), revealing clear separation between Ctrl and noCHI (red), a negative control for gastruloid formation, while hydrogel-embedded conditions cluster near Ctrl. (E) Number of significantly differentially expressed (DE) genes compared to Ctrl, showing substantial transcriptional changes in noCHI and minimal changes in hydrogel-embedded conditions (0.7 mM, 0.8 mM and 1.0 mM). Shown here are representative data and analysis for one experimental replicate. See Fig. S3 for two additional replicates.

Figure 2 - Gene expression patterning and transcriptional profiles in hydrogel-grown gastruloids. (A) Representative immunofluorescence images of gastruloids at 120 h. Gastruloids were grown in standard culture conditions (Ctrl, no hydrogel) or embedded in hydrogels with increasing concentrations (0.7 mM, 0.8 mM and 1.0 mM) at 96 h post-seeding. Nuclei (blue), BRA (purple) and SOX2 (yellow) are labeled. (B,C) Normalized expression profiles of SOX2 (B) and BRA (C) along the AP axis, demonstrating consistent expression patterns across conditions. (D) Principal component analysis of bulk RNA-seq experiments (three replicates), revealing clear separation between Ctrl and noCHI (red), a negative control for gastruloid formation, while hydrogel-embedded conditions cluster near Ctrl. (E) Number of significantly differentially expressed (DE) genes compared to Ctrl, showing substantial transcriptional changes in noCHI and minimal changes in hydrogel-embedded conditions (0.7 mM, 0.8 mM and 1.0 mM). Shown here are representative data and analysis for one experimental replicate. See Fig. S3 for two additional replicates.

Modifying mechanical constraint guides gastruloid patterning

This Research Highlight showcases the work from Judith Pineau @judithpineau.bsky.social, Jerome Wong-Ng @jeromewongng.bsky.social, Thomas Gregor @thomasgregor.bsky.social and colleagues:

journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

02.10.2025 12:10 β€” πŸ‘ 13    πŸ” 3    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 1

In this beautiful system, we could show uncoupling of gene expression profiles, morphology and patterning… #NotInTheGenes πŸ˜‰ (also includes a method to do long term πŸ”¬ of elongating gastruloids)
Thank you to all involved @jeromewongng.bsky.social @thomasgregor.bsky.social @alexandremayran.bsky.social

03.10.2025 08:18 β€” πŸ‘ 13    πŸ” 5    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0