David Brückner

An active torque dipole across tissue layers drives avian left-right symmetry breaking Unlike in mice, frogs, and fish, left-right (L/R) body axis formation in avian embryos does not arise from the chiral beat of cilia. Instead, a counter-clockwise tissue rotation around Hensen′ node, t...

(1/10)
I am excited to finally share our work on avian left/right symmetry breaking with you. We reveal a tissue-scale active torque dipole generated at the Hensen’s node, thanks to crazy experiments by Julia @juliapfanzelter.bsky.social and some analysis by me.
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Congratulations to Dr. @akanksha-jain.bsky.social, Gilles Gut, and the Treutlein Lab and @graycamplab.bsky.social on their work live imaging brain #organoid growth!

@nature.com article: go.nature.com/4la2yZh
Episode with discussion: bit.ly/4nzLrCp

The Secret Disorder of Squids A structural phenomenon traditionally confined to inanimate systems has now been observed in biology.

Physics Magazine writes about our research on hyperdisordered patterns. Thanks @sachinxr.bsky.social for the article and @davidbrueckner.bsky.social for the quotes!

The Secret Disorder of Squids A structural phenomenon traditionally confined to inanimate systems has now been observed in biology.

Many densely packed systems have a hidden structure. They seem random, but become uniform as you zoom out. Conversely, variation increases with scale in hyperdisorder. 🌌 🧪

✍🏽 New for Physics Magazine: A new study reports the first example of hyperdisorder in biology. physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

Boundless research David Brückner loves research at the interface between biology and physics. He has often crossed national borders in pursuit of it: He studied in Cambridge, earned his PhD in Munich, and moved to Vien...

From Cambridge to Basel: The journey of @davidbrueckner.bsky.social spans physics, theoretical modeling, and interdisciplinary discovery. At the Biozentrum, Brückner is teaming up with experimental labs to decode how cells orchestrate life: www.biozentrum.unibas.ch/about/alumni...

Can using synthetic approaches to build biology help teach us the design principles of how embryos build themselves? 👷‍♀️🔧

If this is a question that interests you, come and share your thoughts at this Royal Society Workshop on Generative Biology

royalsociety.org/science-even...

Seminar announcement for Thursday, July 08, 2024, from 12:00 to 13:00, in Freiburg, Institute of Biology I, Hauptstr. 1, and online via Zoom. Prof. David Brückner from the Biozentrum Basel will present his research on “information flow in self-organized developmental systems". The seminar will be held in a hybrid format.

Save the date for next week's #CIBSS & @sfb1381.bsky.social seminar with @davidbrueckner.bsky.social from @biozentrum.unibas.ch on “Information flow in self-organized developmental systems”

📅 Tue, July 08, 2025 · 12:00–13:00

📍 Inst. of Biology I, Hauptstr. 1 + livestream

🔗 kurzlinks.de/2985

Lattice-dependent orientational order in active crystals Via mechanisms not accessible at equilibrium, self-propelled particles can form phases with positional order, such as crystals, and with orientational order, such as polar flocks. However, the interpl...

New preprint! When forming a crystal, active particles that turn either towards or away from each other end up aligning along directions determined by the crystalline lattice. In these active crystals, orientational and positional order are coupled. Work by Till Welker!

arxiv.org/abs/2506.16501

Looking forward to this interdisciplinary meeting next week!

We’re all set!

With 400 participants, 200 posters, and a stellar scientific program featuring both renowned experts and emerging researchers, BaCell3D 2025 is shaping up to be another unforgettable event—happening June 23–25 at the ZLF Hall, University of Basel.

Upcoming interdisciplinary meeting: Cell Physics 2025
When? October 7-9, 2025
Where? Saarbruecken, Germany
Relevant dates? Early-bird deadline: June 30, regular registration by August 31
Several opportunities for short-talks selected from abstracts
More info at: cell-physics.uni-saarland.de

Engineering Life 2025: ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF MECHANICAL FORCES IN BIOLOGY Engineering Life 2025, biological forces, force spectroscopy, measuring forces, developmental forces, molecular motors, forces in morphogenesis, cytoskeleton, DNA mechanics, bionanotechnology

📢Conference alert📢

Only one week left to register for the Engineering Life 2025 Symposium at Dresden September 1-3. This year's edition focuses on the function of mechanical forces in biology.

engineering-life-dresden.de

Morphodynamics of human early brain organoid development - Nature Human brain morphodynamics are explored using organoids.

Congrats @akanksha-jain.bsky.social @graycamplab.bsky.social & Treutlein lab on publishing this @nature.com study on early brain organoid development, with insights into processes underlying brain regionalization 🧪🧠🧬🧫
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Great work from Mochulska & Francois developing a generative framework for systematically building Dynamical Landscapes of cell fate decision making using modular dynamical components

Important step to interpretable and predictive models of cellular differentiation

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

Major update to BacFighT6: sites.google.com/view/bacfigh...
Simulate the role of motility/chemotaxis, capsule production, activation by autoinducers, contact dependent killing, kin-exclusion, foraging and more. Long simulations, extensive data import/export and analysis. Interactive Q&A!

Very excited to share the first preprint from the lab:
www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...
We investigated neural crest migration all the way from head to tail of the Zebrafish embryo and we found their nuclei suffer dramatic deformations.
Want to know of they cope with feeling squeezed? 🐟🐠🐟

Squid study sparks interdisciplinary insight into the physics of growth Often, physics can be used to make sense of the natural world, whether it's understanding gravitational effects on ocean tides or using powerful physics tools, like microscopes, to examine the inner w...

🧪⚛️

Squids are awesome!

Here's a very interesting example of how studying living systems reveals new phenomena and regimes of physics. In this case packing and order. Work from the group of @simonepigolotti.bsky.social at the @oistedu.bsky.social

phys.org/news/2025-06...

💧🌀 Active matter meets interface physics!
We show how conserved active emulsions form traveling interfacial waves and self-propelling liquid gears, powered by non-reciprocal chemical interactions.
🎥 Gears & belts in motion👇
📄 arxiv.org/abs/2505.20028
#ActiveMatter #PhaseSeparation #PatternFormation

Graphs showing 25 years of budgets for the National Institute of Health, NASA, and the NSF. In all cases, the proposed budget for next year is far, far below any year of the previous quarter century.

There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.

Donald Trump’s proposed budget would gut American science It would slash cancer research, drug trials, space exploration, and so much more.

Cutting $20 billion to NIH over 25 years may save $500 billion on paper, but it’d end up costing $8.2 trillion in lost human health.

But NIH isn't the only thing being cut. The budget also slashes all NSF-funded science by 73 percent. NASA faces “the biggest single-year cut to NASA in history."

Embryology 2024: a summer like no other Each summer since 1893, a small group of scientists from around the world have convened at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA, to work on the most exciting model ...

What a fantastic essay by last year's @mblscience.bsky.social Embryology students! A perfect paean to the most wonderful science: "It's exhausting; it's exhilarating; it's Embryology."

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

90% of doing science is being open to new ideas.

Dynamic Landscape Analysis of Cell Fate Decisions: Predictive Models of Neural Development From Single-Cell Data Building a mechanistic understanding of cell fate decisions remains a fundamental goal of developmental biology, with implications for stem cell therapies, regenerative medicine and understanding dise...

Our latest "Dynamic Landscape Analysis of Cell Fate Decisions: Predictive Models of Neural Development From Single-Cell Data"

A rigorous mathematical foundation for Waddington's landscape to study cell fate decision making

Applied to ventral neural tube development

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

Our paper on hyperdisordered packing is out! Chromatophore arrangement on squid skin reveals an exotic form of disordered packing, caused by the interplay of cell insertion and surface growth journals.aps.org/prx/abstract...

Direct measurements of active forces and material properties unveil the active mechanics of early embryogenesis Despite progress in probing tissue mechanics, direct long-term measurements in live embryonic epithelia are lacking. This limits our understanding of amniote embryonic morphogenesis, which takes place...

🚨📣 New preprint alert!
Excited to share my new postdoc work on direct force and mechanical properties measurements in live embryos!
A great team effort with A. Chamolly (theory), under the supervision of F. Corson and @jeromegros.bsky.social
📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#devbio #mechanics

Delighted that our work on positional memory is now published. We asked how axolotl cells 'know' which part of the limb to regenerate after injury.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A joy to work with super team Sarah Plattner, Yuka Sugiura, Francisco Falcon and Elly Tanaka.
🧵1/14

Congrats!!

Post-gastrulation amnioids as a stem cell-derived model of human extra-embryonic development An embryonic stem cell-based 3D model that accurately recapitulates the size, morphology, and functional features of the human amnion at 4 weeks, termed the post-gastrulation amnioid (PGA), is develop...

Beautiful work from @santoslab.bsky.social

A 3D model of human amnion from hESCs

These recapitulate amniotic sac development, revealing GATA3 as key amniogenesis driver & autoregulatory BMP/Wnt feedback loops

And check out the size of them in the video

www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...

It was also a very good time for discussions in nice restaurants and bars 😊

Had a wonderful time at @collegedefrance.bsky.social yesterday with many inspiring discussions about information in biology. Thank you @thomaslecuit.bsky.social for hosting us!