@freddyfrischknecht.bsky.social @lettermann.bsky.social @simonereber.bsky.social @sabass-lab.bsky.social @stefandiezlab.bsky.social @vasilyzaburdaev.bsky.social @phi-max.bsky.social @renkawitzteam.bsky.social
Just back from the annual meeting of the @dfg.de priority program #SPP2332 on "Physics of Parasitism", this time at the Robert Koch Institute at Berlin. So many great talks and discussions! Already looking forward to next year's meeting at Hamburg👍
📢Paper alert📢
Now out in @bmc.springernature.com with open access: our very cool collaboration with @chlandalab.bsky.social on FIB-milling designs for cryoET
rdcu.be/e2nXE
Here you can see different designs for the stress relief cuts for dual-axis tomography. Read the paper for more details😀
📢Job alert📢
@uniheidelberg.bsky.social has an opening for a full W3-position on “Modeling of Biological Processes” 😀👍 Here is the call
tinyurl.com/3w9e9dtf
and application deadline is March 15. The group would be located at the beautiful #BioQuant center right in the middle of Neuenheimer Feld.
Not to forget Goriely at 646 😉
(2/2) Many thanks to Georgios Pavlou and Isabelle Tardieux for providing such an insightful perspective on our work:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
(1/2) Our work with @freddyfrischknecht.bsky.social on the chirality of malaria parasites has found its home in the January issue of @natphys.nature.com:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Moreover, we are very happy that it comes with a news and views article 👍❤️😀
Very sad news…
Great collaboration with Anil Kumar Dasanna, Gerhard Gompper and Dmitry Fedosov on the dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) computer simulations, and with Marianne Papagrigorakes and Michael Lanzer from #SFB1129 on the experiments with microfluidics. Open access paper here: doi.org/10.1016/j.bp...
Now out in @biophysj.bsky.social: our work on the rosettes that sometimes are formed by red blood cells infected by malaria parasites (iRBCs). Surprisingly, they do not marginate, as do white blood cells or "normal" iRBCs, and we explain why (because they are dynamic and effectively soft).
Wow, researchers from our #SFB1129 are implicated in the Science 2024 Breakthrough of the Year, because they showed that HIV-capsids are flexible and go through nuclear pores. The latest paper on Lenacapavir-induced capsid damage just came out in @embojournal.org
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Great news also for the Heidelberg life science community 👍
(9/9) Many thanks to our great collaborators Photini Sinnis and @freddyfrischknecht.bsky.social as well as to our dream team Mirko Singer and @lettermann.bsky.social. And to Collaborative Research Center #SFB1129 and Priority Programme #SPP2332 "Physics of Parasitism", both funded by @dfg.de.
(8/9) Our work is behind a paywall, but you can use the following share link to read it:
rdcu.be/eRu7H
(7/9) Interestingly, ookinetes (the malaria parasites infecting mosquitos) and toxoplasma (the causative agent of toxoplasmosis) move left-handedly and seem to follow the chiral flow model. Here a movie summarizing all our findings:
(6/9) Using two-sided traction force and super-resolution microscopies, we then provided experimental evidence for the asymmetric distribution model:
(5/9) Extending a theoretical model that we have developed earlier for gliding motility based on surface flows, we then reasoned that these motility patterns can be explained best by an asymmetric apical release of adhesins. Read here our earlier work in @pnas.org:
doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
(4/9) A novel hydrogel sandwich assay confirmed that CW-sporozoites move down and CCW-sporozoites move up, in agreement with right-handed chirality both in 2D and 3D.
(3/9) We then realized that the sporozoites spiraling down onto a glass slide there move in clockwise circles, opposite to the situation in medium, where they move in counterclockwise direction. This implies that in medium, they try to move up, not down, as we always had assumed.
(2/9) We first used synthetic hydrogels and image processing to demonstrate that in homogeneous 3D environment, the malaria parasites infecting mice and men (sporozoites) move on regular helices which are almost always right-handed.
📢 Paper alert 📢
Chirality is known to be important for the movement of microorganisms and active matter. In our new paper out today in @natphys.nature.com, we show that chirality is used by malaria parasites to control their motion patterns:
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Here comes a 🧵 ... (1/9)
I am happy to announce that my group has an opening for a funded PhD position to explore the intersection between mechanobiology and inflammation in the intestine. Please see the attached advertisement below. Thanks for circulating and forwarding!
www.srcsb.uni-stuttgart.de/news/New-ope...
Finally out in #PRXLife: our theory on the effect of temperature on the completion time of large networks. Using graph theory, one can show that the Arrhenius plot is quadratic, in excellent agreement with experimental data from fly development. Read the open access paper here: go.aps.org/48brig2
Beautiful work, congrats to Moritz, Petr and team🙌
📣Announcing the 4th edition of the EMBL‑IBEC Conference on “Engineering Multicellular Systems”, taking place 11–13 March 2026 in Barcelona. Exploring organoids, mechanobiology, embryo models, organ-on-chip systems, multiomics and more. Abstracts open now!
events.ibecbarcelona.eu/embl-ibec-co...
Now out in @biophysj.bsky.social with open access and for the special issue dedicated to Erich Sackmann: our model for mechanochemical signal propagation in cell layers. Led by Dennis Wörthmüller from @institutcurie.bsky.social and implemented with discontinuous Galerkin FEM. doi.org/10.1016/j.bp...
Dave Weitz
Laurent Blanchoin
Sarah Köster
The WEH-workshop on „Emergent trends in physics of the cell“ in honor of the late Erich Sackmann is now in full swing at TU Munich. Great talks and an amazing line-up for poster flash talks.
Jochen Guck from MPI Erlangen has passed away on October 4 2025. He has left us far too soon. RIP, Jochen
Congrats Nedal @ndarif.bsky.social, Yannick, Freddy and coworkers to this beautiful project. Another great work from #SFB1129. Special congrats to first author Nedal who very recently defended his PhD at #EMBL.
A very inspiring day with great 45 min talks at the Ulm Biophysics Summer Symposium 2025, by Joachim Spatz, Jovica Ninkovic, Max Bi, @streichan.bsky.social, Sabrina Leslie and Joachim Rädler. Many thanks @serwanelab.bsky.social for the invitation and congratulations for the new position👍😀🚀
