Thomas Lecuit

Clonal-aggregative multicellularity tuned by salinity in a choanoflagellate - Nature The choanoflagellate Choanoeca flexa forms motile and contractile cell monolayers purely clonally, purely aggregatively or through a combination of both processes depending on environmental condi...

Clonal-aggregative multicellularity tuned by salinity in a choanoflagellate www.nature.com/articles/s41... #jcampubs

Spatial patterning of contractility by a self-organized mechanogen activity gradient underlies Drosophila gastrulation - Nature Communications During morphogenesis patterned contractility drives tissue shape changes. Here they show that GPCR signaling and integrin activation give rise to a dynamically translocating gradient of contractility ...

New paper out! In this project, we focused on the question how tissue mechanics is spatially controlled during development. We show that the GPCR ligand Fog acts as a “mechanogen” during Drosophila gastrulation, driving a self-organized wave of tissue invagination:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Spring is just around the corner in Marseille 😊

Very sad news. Gail Martin (1944-2026) was a figure in developmental biology. She pioneered the field of ES cells.
A great colleague, a friend and a lovely person.

Huge congrats to @manuelthery.bsky.social and all the Cytomorpho lab. The "Living Architectures" performance at @museeorsay.bsky.social was breathtakingly beautiful

A few seconds of eternity: From microscope to museum❣️
It was truly delightful to be part of this project, celebrating life as a continuous dance of creation, collapse, and renewal. 🔄
Kudos to @manuelthery.bsky.social @lblanchoin.bsky.social #cytomorpholab members, and @museeorsay.bsky.social

This weekend we projected cells and filaments on the roof of the @museeorsay.bsky.social in Paris, then we contracted it with a pinch of myosin.
And it was fabulous!

Grateful to have been part of this art/science project & thx to @manuelthery.bsky.social @lblanchoin.bsky.social & the CytoMorphoLab

Very nice dinner with colleagues from Institut Pasteur, Francois Schweisguth, Romain @levayerr.bsky.social , Thomas Gregor and @jeromegros.bsky.social 🤩. I look forward to more discussions and to giving my seminar tomorrow ! Thank you for the great invitation.

Bluesky Map Interactive map of 3.4 million Bluesky users, visualised by their follower pattern.

I made a map of 3.4 million Bluesky users - see if you can find yourself!

bluesky-map.theo.io

I've seen some similar projects, but IMO this seems to better capture some of the fine-grained detail

Last but not least, @NCBS_Bangalore hosts remarkable plants and biodiversity. The garden is beautiful, at any season. Always refreshing to be exposed to nature while working on « life in a lab »… a glimpse below 🤩

Another treat visiting ICTS, welcomed & stimulated by @vijaykrishnamurthy.bsky.social Exciting work on non-trivial & remarkable interactions btw mechanics & geometry in morphogenesis.
Check what will come out…
+ Do visit ICTS biological physics groups. 🙏🏼 for hosting me!

A very interesting article « De novo emergence of metabolically active protocols ». Complex chemistry, organisation from few input constituants. Very intriguing.
Congrats Shashi Thutupalli and colleagues @stpalli
Link:
arxiv.org/abs/2601.11013

Among outstanding scientists @ncbsbangalore.bsky.social are the physicists. Colleagues & friends Madan Rao, Mukund Thattai, @stpalli Shashi Thutupalli, w. visitors Shiva GV, Irene Giardina. Always learn from them. Great discussions on Information & computation in biology.

15 yrs ago, I spent 1y sabbatical @ncbsbangalore.bsky.social , with family, hosted by @kvijayraghavan.bsky.social , starting long standing coll. with Jitu Mayor & Madan Rao. The discovery of this exceptionally diverse, creative & energetic community transformed me 🤩. Huge 🙏🏼

Cytoplasmic crowding acts as a porous medium reducing macromolecule diffusion | PNAS Intracellular transport of macromolecules is crucial for the proper functioning of most cellular processes. Although intracellular crowding is know...

Happy to highlight our collaborative work from our @ijmonod.bsky.social team with @destriano.bsky.social, B. Goyeau and M. Chabanon.
Cytoplasmic crowding acts as a porous medium that hinders macromolecular diffusivity.
Plus: a clever way to measure cell volume.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

In remembrance of Peer Bork  | EMBL EMBL and its community are deeply saddened by the death of Peer Bork, the organisation’s Interim Director General.

very sad news. Peer Bork was one of the leaders of our field, a wonderful scientist, and he's much too young to be gone. www.embl.org/news/embl-an...

Excited to share Alison's @alisonkickuth.bsky.social paper from the lab out in @nature.com this week! We uncovered how a mechanical ratchet mechanism drives cytokinesis in early #zebrafish embryos. Read more in this thread 🧵 and at www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🤩
@poldresden.bsky.social @mpi-cbg.de

A screenshot of the 'The hard truth about how hard it is to publish in Development' article PDF.

The hard truth about how hard it is to publish in Development

Editor-in-Chief @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social leads our team of Academic Editors in addressing the perception that Development is ‘too hard to publish in’ by discussing the journal's review process.

doi.org/10.1242/dev....

Is there a mathematics of discontinuous behavior? Christopher Zeeman was a leading proponent of Catastrophe Theory, a topological approach to sudden change that underpins much of today’s work on tipping points. This is his beautiful 1976 paper in @sciam.bsky.social www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2...

Wonderful dinner in Paris with Claude Desplan, 1st mentor (who led me to become a scientist because his lab was such a cool place) & friend. Thank you for your energy, shear passion for science and sense of humour 🤩. And see you soon at the College de France in May June for your lecture series.

How can cells use information from neighboring cells to improve the spatial precision of morphogen patterns? 🤔

We show that cells can gain positional information by "talking" to their neighbors - how much depends critically on spatial correlations of the patterns.

buff.ly/w56OUJT

Super nice to see this awesome set of lectures online! A really timely perspective on biology through the lens of information, which inspires much of our own research as well.

The CENTURI PhD Call 2026 is still ongoing. Applications are open until the end of the month, on January 28th!

Visit centuri-livingsystems.org/recruitment/ to apply.

#PHD #CENTURI

Here is the link to download the PDF of my course#5 on Biological computation. I present & discuss Self-tuning, Adaptation and Learning in biological (non-neuronal) systems, in particular during embryonic development.
This course contains various personal ideas/proposals.
tinyurl.com/hcpwsbtm

Qu’est-ce que l’information biologique (suite) ? (5) - Thomas Lecuit (2025-2026) Enseignement 2025-2026 : Qu’est-ce que l’information biologique (suite) ? Cours du 18 décembre 2025 : Apprentissage non neuronal dans un système vivant Professeur : Thomas Lecuit Chaire Dynamiques du vivant Retrouvez les enregistrements audios et vidéos du cycle : https://www.college-de-france.fr/fr/agenda/cours/qu-est-ce-que-information-biologique Tous les enseignements du Pr Thomas Lecuit : https://www.college-de-france.fr/chaire/thomas-lecuit-dynamiques-du-vivant-chaire-statutaire https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOj9pZ2YNGZ84uMY6DhPnqpL1rq5qNAVJ Le Collège de France est une institution de recherche fondamentale dans tous les domaines de la connaissance et un lieu de diffusion du « savoir en train de se faire » ouvert à tous. Les cours, séminaires, colloques sont enregistrés puis mis à disposition du public sur le site internet du Collège de France. Découvrez toutes les ressources du Collège de France : https://www.college-de-france.fr Soutenir le Collège de France : https://www.fondation-cdf.fr/faire-un-don Suivez-nous sur : Threads : https://www.threads.net/@collegedefrance Bluesky : https://bsky.app/profile/college-de-france.fr Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/College.de.France Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/collegedefrance LinkedIn : https://fr.linkedin.com/company/coll%C3%A8gedefrance

Please find below the link to watch the VIDEO of my course#5 @college-de-france.fr on Biological computation. I present and discuss Self-tuning, Adaptation and Learning in biological (non/neuronal) systems, in particular during embryonic development.
Enjoy!

tinyurl.com/4pv95an9

#Science #Biologie
🧬 « Qu’est-ce que l’information biologique (suite) ? » 
🖥️ Le cours du Pr @thomaslecuit.bsky.social, titulaire de la chaire Dynamiques du vivant, est terminé... mais toutes les vidéos sont à retrouver sur notre site web !
👉 https://tinyurl.com/bddcxahd

And here is the PDF of the 4th course @college-de-france.fr. You will find the justification and presentation of geometric representation of cell decisions, a parsimonious mathematical model for signalling and cell state transitions

tinyurl.com/yc7u296j

Qu’est-ce que l’information biologique (suite) ? (4) - Thomas Lecuit (2025-2026) Enseignement 2025-2026 : Qu’est-ce que l’information biologique (suite) ? Cours du 11 décembre 2025 : Vision dynamique du traitement d'information Professeur : Thomas Lecuit Chaire Dynamiques du vivant Retrouvez les enregistrements audios et vidéos du cycle : https://www.college-de-france.fr/fr/agenda/cours/qu-est-ce-que-information-biologique Tous les enseignements du Pr Thomas Lecuit : https://www.college-de-france.fr/chaire/thomas-lecuit-dynamiques-du-vivant-chaire-statutaire https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOj9pZ2YNGZ84uMY6DhPnqpL1rq5qNAVJ Le Collège de France est une institution de recherche fondamentale dans tous les domaines de la connaissance et un lieu de diffusion du « savoir en train de se faire » ouvert à tous. Les cours, séminaires, colloques sont enregistrés puis mis à disposition du public sur le site internet du Collège de France. Découvrez toutes les ressources du Collège de France : https://www.college-de-france.fr Soutenir le Collège de France : https://www.fondation-cdf.fr/faire-un-don Suivez-nous sur : Threads : https://www.threads.net/@collegedefrance Bluesky : https://bsky.app/profile/college-de-france.fr Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/College.de.France Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/collegedefrance LinkedIn : https://fr.linkedin.com/company/coll%C3%A8gedefrance

Please find below the link to watch the VIDEO of my course#4 @college-de-france.fr on Biological computation. I present and discuss Geometric analysis of cell decisions during development, a mathematical formulation of Waddington landscapes.
Enjoy!

tinyurl.com/3zay96xx

Have you ever wondered what you would find if you could keep your eyes on a bee for more than a few meters? Us, too!

preprint (with videos!) + thread 🧵

Precise, individualized foraging flights in honey #bees 🐝 revealed by multicopter drone-based tracking

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

1/9

Here is the link to download the PDF of my 3rd course @cdf1530 on biological computation. I present and discuss network motifs that reveal the hidden logic of complex networks.

tinyurl.com/5ynpspad