Centre for Mechanochemical Cell Biology

Just published 🎉🥳 Two-photon #FLIM of NAD(P)H is a promising readout for cellular metabolic changes. However, multiplexing with fluorescent proteins is surprisingly hard🤔😅 ... But it can be navigated! www.cell.com/biophysrepor... @biophysreports.bsky.social

How did I miss this? Serious membrane organisation story by my colleagues at @mechanochemistry.org @uni-of-warwick.bsky.social Lipids, actin, myosin, GPI-APs, and homo-FRET - what is there not to like?

Our latest study about how stratified myosin motors at the plasma membrane drive distinct nanoscale clusters that organize into segregated mesoscale active emulsions is out in Science Advances! Read on to find out more| Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

NEWS: @anne.mechanochemistry.org and I are the new Joint Directors of the Centre for Mechanochemical Cell Biology (CMCB) at Warwick @mechanochemistry.org We thank @rob.mechanochemistry.org who has been at the helm of CMCB since its inception. Looking forward to more exciting science in the future.

10 years Bowman lab @bowchro.bsky.social anniversary today, so we are treated to a complete history with all side bets talk. Congratulations 🎉

A mystery at @mechanochemistry.org ! There’s a carrot that is neatly placed in the corridor. None is admitting to owning it. How did it get here? Where will it go next? 🥕

We had a blast. Thanks to everyone who came and made this such a memorable event.

Erik Schäffer @schaefferlab.bsky.social uses silicon nanospheres to measure the forces of ultra-weak plant kinesins with sub femtoNewton resolution.

Mark Dodding @markdodding.bsky.social talks about cargo-dependent activation of kinesin-1 through the light chain. Phosphorylation by NEK10 kinase suppresses membrane association of KLC2 specifically and controls lysosome transport by cooperation with cargo adapters.

Our own Masanori Mishima is up next discussing weak electrostatic interactions of motors and tracks that can be regulated by post translational modifications with examples from phosphorylation of KIF23/MKLP1 and arginylation and myosin II.

Varun Ramaswamy is describing how he tackled the difficult problem of determining the structure of full length of HSET

What happens when science is free to ask any question? It leads to discoveries we didn’t plan for – but now depend on. This #EuropeDay, we support #ProtectWhatMatters, celebrating the freedom that makes frontier research possible. Read the stories 👉 buff.ly/SRCDWoW and have a happy Europe Day! 🇪🇺

Starting off today is Marija Zanic @zaniclab.bsky.social who introduces us to SSNA1, a sensor for microtubule damage and microtubule stabiliser, that increases their rigidity and protects against breakage

Good morning! Day 2 of our Motors and Filaments meeting is under way.

The "Vanderbilt girls" on the way to the dinner in the Tocil Wood bluebells.

Evening keynote from Rob Cross summarising 35 years of research to understand how kinesin walks along microtubules featuring the neck linker as position sensor, the load-dependence of dwell time and directionality of steps and the type of microtubule track.

Yean-Ming (Cross lab) talks about the dynamics of different tubulin isotypes and interrogates the lateral interaction regions, generating a chimera that assembled so readily that they also assemble in GDP.

Some poster session impressions from motors and filaments meeting

Glenn Carrington (Peckham lab) shows the structure of myosin-5 in a two head bound state on actin and highlights strain-associated changes in the motor domain that explains different ADP release rates from leading and trailing heads.

Some happy faces behind the scenes - this is a reunion of @joehowardd.bsky.social with his former diploma student Frauke Hussmann

Beth Lawrence (Manchester) talks about her postdoc project in the @zaniclab.bsky.social where she showed that human CLASP2 promotes rescues and suppresses catastrophies without affecting microtubule assembly and disassembly speeds. CLASP can convert the pre-catastrophe intermediate state to growth

Jingyi Luo (Ti lab) identifies a single amino acid change in beta3-tubulin that can sensitise cancer cells to paclitaxel by allosteric changes to the taxane binding pocket and by directly stabilising the microtubule lattice by increasing structured water molecules and delayed GTP hydrolysis.

Change of machine: Andrew McMahon describes the elangosome that builds the bacterial cell wall. He is using Minflux to track individual rodA synthase molecules.

Now some theory of beating cilia from Benjamin Friedrich @friedrich-group.bsky.social describing a stochastic dynamic sliding control model.

Alice Brinkworth continues the flagellum theme with cryo electron tomography of microgamete cells from Plasmodium revealing non-canonical microtubule arrangements

Girish Mali @dyneinassembly.bsky.social looks at the recycling of motile cilia after they partially disassembled their cilia under stress.

Time-resolved cryo electron microscopy 🙃 from Carolyn Moores

Carolyn Moores focussed on doublecortin today, a microtubule nucleator stabilising 13 protofilament microtubules specifically. She also acknowledges inspiring and supportive mentors Rob and Ron.

Apolena Zounarova (Straube & Diez labs) talks about dynein-mediated sliding

Marcus Braun discusses how tau changes the microtubule environment for motors and other MAPs

Discussing A, B, C and D lattice microtubules...

You can still join remotely. We will send you the livestream link after you register on our website. For the discussions, reply to our posts with any questions you might have and we will read them out to the speaker on your behalf

First off is Joe Howard who brings us pictures of the past and discusses how cilia beat.

Good morning, about to start our motors and filament meeting. We will keep you updated here throughout today and tomorrow

Barely a week to go until our "Motors and Filaments" meeting. Programme is ready. Catering ordered. My 3d printer has been busy too: have a look into the mingle bingo and dinner quiz prizes box. tinyurl.com/mechanochemi...

Glorious weather for CMCB happy hour today hosted by Köster & Straube labs with 🥭 🍦 🍻 and a lot of other tasty treats

Congratulations to Rob Cross from Centre for Mechanochemical Cell Biology on receiving the 2025 Biochemical Society Award for Sustained Excellence at Dynamic Cell VI today! Rob presented his latest insights into the interlocking nanomechanics of kinesins and tubulins.

Rob Cross @mechanochemistry.org shares his insights on kinesin and microtubule nanomechanics at #DynamicCellVI Rob is the recipient of the @biochemsoc.bsky.social Award for Sustained Excellence 2025. Congratulations!

Registration deadline for our motors and filaments meeting is tomorrow - not a 1st April joke! Thanks to our generous sponsors supporting sustainable scientific conference organisation @embo.org @biologists.bsky.social we also offer registration for a free livestream, supported by bsky discussions!