Meet Dr. Stephanie Möllmert – Curiosity as a common thread

She leads the #research group “Reproductive #Mechanobiology” at MPZPM & aims to connect fundamental #biophysics with questions that matter for women’s health.

Stephanie developed a passion for STEM early on. Biophysics became the answer – physical concepts & precise measurement methods applied to living systems. For her, this is defined by openness, questioning her own assumptions & collaborative thinking.

👉 https://mpzpm.mpg.de/research/stephanie-moellmert

🧠 A novel interaction between mechanics and signals that challenges orthodox assumptions, a qualitative structural insight rather than a incremental finding

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-discover-a-hidden-mechanism-that-controls-the-brains-chemical-signals/ #Mechanobiology

PhD Researcher, Intestinal Mechanobiology and Inflammation
University of Stuttgart

See the full job description on jobRxiv: https://jobrxiv.org/job/university-of-stuttgart-27778-phd-researcher-intestinal-mechanobiology-and-inflammation/

#EpithelialcellBiologyIntestine #Inflammation #inflammatoryboweldisease #mechanobiology #mechanosensing #organoids #ScienceJobs #hi...
https://jobrxiv.org/job/university-of-stuttgart-27778-phd-researcher-intestinal-mechanobiology-and-inflammation/?fsp_sid=6521

PhD Researcher, Intestinal Mechanobiology and Inflammation
University of Stuttgart

See the full job description on jobRxiv: https://jobrxiv.org/job/university-of-stuttgart-27778-phd-researcher-intestinal-mechanobiology-and-inflammation/

#EpithelialcellBiologyIntestine #Inflammation #inflammatoryboweldisease #mechanobiology #mechanosensing #organoids #ScienceJobs #hi...
https://jobrxiv.org/job/university-of-stuttgart-27778-phd-researcher-intestinal-mechanobiology-and-inflammation/?fsp_sid=6192

Cephalic furrow paper

The peer-reviewed version of our cephalic furrow paper is out 🎉

It was published back-to-back with another cephalic furrow study:

Research mutualism

This was a wonderful collaborative effort to understand the developmental role and evolutionary origins of this prominent but overlooked tissue fold of fly embryos.

We were two teams working on a similar question, doing similar experiments, and observing similar results. But instead of competing and eventually scooping each other, we decided to join forces. The overlapping experiments became an asset as they were performed independently by different people in different labs. And since we were tackling the problem from different angles and using different approaches, the two studies neatly complemented each other and strengthened the main conclusions.

From the start, we posted the preprints and submitted the manuscripts together, and I’m delighted that the papers got to be published together back-to-back, as we had originally envisioned it.

To top this emotion, our findings and overarching story were carefully summarized in a great overview piece written by Thibaut Brunet:

Some thank yous

I have more to say about this cephalic furrow endeavor, but for now I’d like to highlight the immediate people who made it possible.

Marina Cuenca who performed crucial experiments and analyses that were a turning point for the project into tissue mechanics; Abhijeet Krishna, who did an outstanding job coding the model and running the simulations; and Alicja Szałapak who greatly contributed to the model and visualizations early in the project. Carl Modes, who supervised the theory part and could always explain so clearly the math and modeling intricacies to this biologist here. And, finally, Pavel Tomancak who provided all the support and input along the course of this project and was a guiding light for the entire endeavor. It was a pleasure to work with such talented scientists and wonderful people.

Additionally, I’d like to thank Steffen Lemke and Yu-Chiun Wang and their teams, who agreed to embark with us on this mutualistic scientific collaboration; our reviewers Thibaut Brunet, Alfonso Martinez-Arias, and an anonymous reviewer for their constructive feedback that helped shape and consolidate our work; the editor Henry Gee for handling our manuscripts during the revision process; and the Max Planck Society for paying the article processing charges to make the article open access.

There are many more people to thank. I’m writing it up on a new post, which I’ll link below when ready.

Some related posts

• The Great Divide
• Mechanobiology EMBL Symposium 2022
• The MeMoDEvo QBIO Symposium 2022
• Cephalic furrow on bioRxiv
• Cephalic furrow thread
• Improving Z-resolution of lightsheet data using CARE upsampling
• Cephalic furrow preLights
• In the spotLights
• EuroEvoDevo Helsinki 2024

—
URL: https://brunovellutini.com/posts/cephalic-furrow-paper/

#cephalicFurrow #ceratitisCapitata #clogmiaAlbipunctata #diptera #drosophilaMelanogaster #evoDevo #mechanobiology #postdoc #publication

New preprint from the Straube lab showcasing a computational method to look at cell shape changes during migration using similarity-based shape space mapping.

Jefferyes et al.

ShapeSpaceExplorer: Analysis of morphological transitions in migrating cells using similarity-based shape space mapping

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.19.671051v1?med=mas

#CellBiology #Mechanobiology

New #preLights post from Vibha Singh! 👀

In this highlighted #preprint, the research team (#NalbantLab) introduces a powerful new approach to studying mechanobiological regulation in cancer. In doing so, they describe how tumour cells manage to “pull” themselves away from the tumour bulk during invasion.

Read the #preLight here 👉 https://prelights.biologists.com/highlights/optogenetic-stimulation-of-lbc-gef-mediated-rho-activity-dynamics-promotes-cell-invasion/

#CancerResearch #Optogenetics #Mechanobiology #TumourInvasion