Yu-Chiun Wang
@yuchiunwang.bsky.social
Developmental biology fascinated about the mane (sur)faces/phases of epithelial morphogenesis: from mechanics to evolution.
https://www.bdr.riken.jp/en/research/labs/wang-yc/index.html
https://www.bdr.riken.jp/en/research/labs/wang-yc/index.html
Pinned
Tissue 'tectonic' collision is detrimental, but flies found two distinct solutions! Gratifying and grateful to be included in this collective effort, w/ Steffen Lemke, to crack the (or 'a') code of #cephalicfurrow, now out in @nature.com, all with @paveltomancak.bsky.social at the helm. (1/9)
Interested in polarity and mechanics during epithelial morphogenesis? Considering joining us! Students to be hired initially as Research Associates. Postdocs encouraged to obtain fellowship, and we help/train you to do that. Apply to tinyurl.com/y6x489t5. Deadline Dec 15.
Please repost!
Please repost!
November 3, 2025 at 1:53 AM
Interested in polarity and mechanics during epithelial morphogenesis? Considering joining us! Students to be hired initially as Research Associates. Postdocs encouraged to obtain fellowship, and we help/train you to do that. Apply to tinyurl.com/y6x489t5. Deadline Dec 15.
Please repost!
Please repost!
Excited to be traveling to meetings.embo.org/event/25-cyt... in Pune, India. Looking forward to seeing friends not seen in years and revisiting for the first time since 2020. My lab is recruiting. Those interested, let’s meet up there! (Look out for ads up here soon.)
Frontiers in Cytoskeleton Research
A key question in biology is how living cells adapt to highly complex functional requirements in the context of an organism, within which they need to develop complex morphologies, interact with many…
meetings.embo.org
November 1, 2025 at 12:26 AM
Excited to be traveling to meetings.embo.org/event/25-cyt... in Pune, India. Looking forward to seeing friends not seen in years and revisiting for the first time since 2020. My lab is recruiting. Those interested, let’s meet up there! (Look out for ads up here soon.)
Reposted by Yu-Chiun Wang
🚨Our collaboration with @centriolelab.bsky.social & @gautamdey.bsky.social is out today in @cp-cell.bsky.social
We show that #Expansion #Microscopy is a broad-spectrum modality for Euks, enabling 3D phenotypic maps rooted to phylogeny.
#ProtistsOnSky #SciComm #SciSky
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
We show that #Expansion #Microscopy is a broad-spectrum modality for Euks, enabling 3D phenotypic maps rooted to phylogeny.
#ProtistsOnSky #SciComm #SciSky
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
October 31, 2025 at 2:42 PM
🚨Our collaboration with @centriolelab.bsky.social & @gautamdey.bsky.social is out today in @cp-cell.bsky.social
We show that #Expansion #Microscopy is a broad-spectrum modality for Euks, enabling 3D phenotypic maps rooted to phylogeny.
#ProtistsOnSky #SciComm #SciSky
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
We show that #Expansion #Microscopy is a broad-spectrum modality for Euks, enabling 3D phenotypic maps rooted to phylogeny.
#ProtistsOnSky #SciComm #SciSky
www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
Missing also @bipashadey29.bsky.social, but with @sameerthukral.bsky.social crashing the party, more than making up for it!
Today our #cephalic #furrow #evolution story hits the shelves in the glossy journal form. How appropriate that it’s architects met in Paris. Missing @bruvellu.bsky.social but joined by #CF enthusiast Mateo Rauzi & @heisenbergcplab.bsky.social @yuchiunwang.bsky.social Steffen Lemke #mechanicsfirst
October 17, 2025 at 4:58 AM
Missing also @bipashadey29.bsky.social, but with @sameerthukral.bsky.social crashing the party, more than making up for it!
Reposted by Yu-Chiun Wang
John Gurdon, former Group Leader and Head of @cellbiol-mrclmb.bsky.social has died.
Despite calling himself a "total non-intellectual” his work to reprogramme somatic cells to pluripotent stem cells transformed the field of developmental biology.
More: www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/john-gurdon-...
#LMBNews
Despite calling himself a "total non-intellectual” his work to reprogramme somatic cells to pluripotent stem cells transformed the field of developmental biology.
More: www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/john-gurdon-...
#LMBNews
October 8, 2025 at 8:49 AM
John Gurdon, former Group Leader and Head of @cellbiol-mrclmb.bsky.social has died.
Despite calling himself a "total non-intellectual” his work to reprogramme somatic cells to pluripotent stem cells transformed the field of developmental biology.
More: www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/john-gurdon-...
#LMBNews
Despite calling himself a "total non-intellectual” his work to reprogramme somatic cells to pluripotent stem cells transformed the field of developmental biology.
More: www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/john-gurdon-...
#LMBNews
Reposted by Yu-Chiun Wang
🧠 Join us @uzh-ch.bsky.social ! We are a new lab looking for PhDs, Postdocs & Master’s students interested in studying how human neural systems emerge & go awry using brain organoids, light-sheet imaging & genomics. 🚀 Deadline for LSZGS 1st Nov! www.lifescience-graduateschool.uzh.ch/en.html.
October 7, 2025 at 11:57 AM
🧠 Join us @uzh-ch.bsky.social ! We are a new lab looking for PhDs, Postdocs & Master’s students interested in studying how human neural systems emerge & go awry using brain organoids, light-sheet imaging & genomics. 🚀 Deadline for LSZGS 1st Nov! www.lifescience-graduateschool.uzh.ch/en.html.
How nice! Mechanochemical feedback that shuts it self off below threshold. That is THE frontier of developmental mechanisms. Congrats!
Our latest preprint! Into morphogenesis, Yap, ECM, signaling, vertex models, feedbacks/robustness? There is something here for everyone. We discovered a positive feedback loop that extends inner ear canals, and a built-in mechanism that shuts it down when morphogenesis is done. tinyurl.com/464wsjhd
September 27, 2025 at 6:51 AM
How nice! Mechanochemical feedback that shuts it self off below threshold. That is THE frontier of developmental mechanisms. Congrats!
Reposted by Yu-Chiun Wang
Development does not happen in isolation! Material properties, geometry, stiffness, fluid flows...can all steer how development unfolds. If you’re exploring these kinds of questions, we’d love to see your work @dev-journal.bsky.social
More info below ⬇️
More info below ⬇️
📢Call for papers. Submit your latest research to our upcoming special issue – The Extracellular Environment in Development, Regeneration and Stem Cells
Guest Editors: Alex Hughes and Rashmi Priya
📅 Deadline: 1 March 2026
journals.biologists.com/dev/pages/ex...
#DevBio
Guest Editors: Alex Hughes and Rashmi Priya
📅 Deadline: 1 March 2026
journals.biologists.com/dev/pages/ex...
#DevBio
September 19, 2025 at 9:48 AM
Development does not happen in isolation! Material properties, geometry, stiffness, fluid flows...can all steer how development unfolds. If you’re exploring these kinds of questions, we’d love to see your work @dev-journal.bsky.social
More info below ⬇️
More info below ⬇️
Many thanks to @riken-bdr.bsky.social press team for publicizing our work.
🪰Yu-Chiun Wang’s team & Univ. of Hohenheim group discovered how fly embryos solve the “tissue tectonic collision” that occurs in morphogenetic movements between tissues and why the #cephalicfurrow evolved, a longstanding mystery to developmental biologists.
In @nature.com
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
In @nature.com
doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Divergent evolutionary strategies pre-empt tissue collision in gastrulation - Nature
Flies have evolved two distinct strategies for managing mechanical stresses during embryogenesis: out-of-plane cell division in midges and transient out-of-plane tissue folding in fruit flies.
doi.org
September 19, 2025 at 8:17 AM
Many thanks to @riken-bdr.bsky.social press team for publicizing our work.
Reposted by Yu-Chiun Wang
A ring of cells deforms into a triangular keyhole in just 15 minutes. Meet the hindgut, a model for boundary-driven morphogenesis!
Out now in @pnas.org at doi.org/10.1073/pnas... with @zhaoshh.bsky.social, Alex Jacinto, Eric Wieschaus, Stas Shvartsman, @lepuslapis.bsky.social (1/8)
Out now in @pnas.org at doi.org/10.1073/pnas... with @zhaoshh.bsky.social, Alex Jacinto, Eric Wieschaus, Stas Shvartsman, @lepuslapis.bsky.social (1/8)
September 18, 2025 at 8:32 PM
A ring of cells deforms into a triangular keyhole in just 15 minutes. Meet the hindgut, a model for boundary-driven morphogenesis!
Out now in @pnas.org at doi.org/10.1073/pnas... with @zhaoshh.bsky.social, Alex Jacinto, Eric Wieschaus, Stas Shvartsman, @lepuslapis.bsky.social (1/8)
Out now in @pnas.org at doi.org/10.1073/pnas... with @zhaoshh.bsky.social, Alex Jacinto, Eric Wieschaus, Stas Shvartsman, @lepuslapis.bsky.social (1/8)
Reposted by Yu-Chiun Wang
Thrilled to share the first story from my postdoc! 🎉 A wonderful experiment + simulations collaboration. In the Drosophila wing, we find that 3D cell shapes affect signalling range and fine-tune developmental patterning www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Thread below ⬇️
August 11, 2025 at 1:18 PM
Thrilled to share the first story from my postdoc! 🎉 A wonderful experiment + simulations collaboration. In the Drosophila wing, we find that 3D cell shapes affect signalling range and fine-tune developmental patterning www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Thread below ⬇️
Reposted by Yu-Chiun Wang
🔔 Proud to share the preprint of my PhD work in the Petridou group @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social @embl.org ✨
“A closed feedback between tissue phase transitions and morphogen gradients drives patterning dynamics” 🐟 🔁 📶
🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#devbio #biophysics
🧵⤵️
“A closed feedback between tissue phase transitions and morphogen gradients drives patterning dynamics” 🐟 🔁 📶
🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#devbio #biophysics
🧵⤵️
June 11, 2025 at 4:47 PM
🔔 Proud to share the preprint of my PhD work in the Petridou group @nicolettapetridou.bsky.social @embl.org ✨
“A closed feedback between tissue phase transitions and morphogen gradients drives patterning dynamics” 🐟 🔁 📶
🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#devbio #biophysics
🧵⤵️
“A closed feedback between tissue phase transitions and morphogen gradients drives patterning dynamics” 🐟 🔁 📶
🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
#devbio #biophysics
🧵⤵️
Reposted by Yu-Chiun Wang
Super thrilled to see our review out! It was a great experience to put this together with @sameerthukral.bsky.social and @yuchiunwang.bsky.social. Use it as a primer to the field or as inspiration to brainstorm how rigidity transitions can bridge scales!
Excited to share our new review in Development, Growth and Differentiation(DGD) Journall!
With the amazing @yuchiunwang.bsky.social & @bipashadey29.bsky.social,we explore how rigidity transitions bridge cytoplasmic & tissue scales.
Read the full review: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
With the amazing @yuchiunwang.bsky.social & @bipashadey29.bsky.social,we explore how rigidity transitions bridge cytoplasmic & tissue scales.
Read the full review: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Integrating Tissue and Cytoplasmic Rigidity Transitions During Morphogenesis
Multicellular organisms generate organizational complexity through morphogenesis, in which mechanical forces orchestrate the movements and deformations of cells and tissues, while chemical signals re...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
September 12, 2025 at 8:23 AM
Super thrilled to see our review out! It was a great experience to put this together with @sameerthukral.bsky.social and @yuchiunwang.bsky.social. Use it as a primer to the field or as inspiration to brainstorm how rigidity transitions can bridge scales!
Reposted by Yu-Chiun Wang
Thanks to @liamholt.bsky.social @fredchanglab.bsky.social for inspiration during the 2023 RIKEN symposium & @itaiyanai.bsky.social @nightsciencepod.bsky.social for encouraging us to blend day & night science,using a review not only to recap but also generate new perspectives!
September 12, 2025 at 6:26 AM
Thanks to @liamholt.bsky.social @fredchanglab.bsky.social for inspiration during the 2023 RIKEN symposium & @itaiyanai.bsky.social @nightsciencepod.bsky.social for encouraging us to blend day & night science,using a review not only to recap but also generate new perspectives!
Reposted by Yu-Chiun Wang
From crowded cytoplasm to flowing tissues:how material properties changes across scales shaping development,especially during transitions?
We provide primers on tissue scale & cytoplasmic rigidity,control parameters,new hypotheses on possible cross-scale feedback,linking scales rarely integrated.
We provide primers on tissue scale & cytoplasmic rigidity,control parameters,new hypotheses on possible cross-scale feedback,linking scales rarely integrated.
September 12, 2025 at 6:24 AM
From crowded cytoplasm to flowing tissues:how material properties changes across scales shaping development,especially during transitions?
We provide primers on tissue scale & cytoplasmic rigidity,control parameters,new hypotheses on possible cross-scale feedback,linking scales rarely integrated.
We provide primers on tissue scale & cytoplasmic rigidity,control parameters,new hypotheses on possible cross-scale feedback,linking scales rarely integrated.
Tissues transition between solid & fluid states in development & disease; cytoplasm turns crowded or inert to literally 'solidify'. Any connections? Turns out nothing's known. @sameerthukral.bsky.social & @bipashadey29.bsky.social pulled this review off brilliantly with a conceptual synthesis.
September 15, 2025 at 2:12 AM
Tissues transition between solid & fluid states in development & disease; cytoplasm turns crowded or inert to literally 'solidify'. Any connections? Turns out nothing's known. @sameerthukral.bsky.social & @bipashadey29.bsky.social pulled this review off brilliantly with a conceptual synthesis.
Reposted by Yu-Chiun Wang
New preprint! 🚨 We uncover a slow adaptation to stretch that links star-bundling of keratin filaments with nuclear escape from its keratin cage. Led by @tomgolde.bsky.social 🙌
@IBECBarcelona
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
@IBECBarcelona
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
September 1, 2025 at 3:31 PM
New preprint! 🚨 We uncover a slow adaptation to stretch that links star-bundling of keratin filaments with nuclear escape from its keratin cage. Led by @tomgolde.bsky.social 🙌
@IBECBarcelona
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
@IBECBarcelona
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Yu-Chiun Wang
Very happy to share our new study from CAM team @ijmonod.bsky.social and @mpi-scienceoflight.bsky.social (MPZPM) on the unanticipated “hidden fluidity” in jammed epithelia. Congrats to Yuan Shen and great collaboration with Walter Kob.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
The complex microscopic dynamics of cells in high-density epithelial tissues
Epithelial tissues line the surfaces of vital organs and are often densely packed in a disordered, mechanically arrested state, referred to as jammed or glassy state. While collective migration at low...
www.biorxiv.org
September 10, 2025 at 10:14 AM
Very happy to share our new study from CAM team @ijmonod.bsky.social and @mpi-scienceoflight.bsky.social (MPZPM) on the unanticipated “hidden fluidity” in jammed epithelia. Congrats to Yuan Shen and great collaboration with Walter Kob.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Reposted by Yu-Chiun Wang
Reposted by Yu-Chiun Wang
Nature research paper: Patterned invagination prevents mechanical instability during gastrulation
go.nature.com/420lbIj
go.nature.com/420lbIj
Patterned invagination prevents mechanical instability during gastrulation - Nature
In Drosophila, the cephalic furrow counteracts mechanical stress as the developing head and the trunk tissues meet, providing evidence for how mechanical forces influence the evolution of morphogenetic innovations in early development.
go.nature.com
September 9, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Nature research paper: Patterned invagination prevents mechanical instability during gastrulation
go.nature.com/420lbIj
go.nature.com/420lbIj
Reposted by Yu-Chiun Wang
Nature research paper: Divergent evolutionary strategies pre-empt tissue collision in gastrulation
go.nature.com/4m3exrU
go.nature.com/4m3exrU
Divergent evolutionary strategies pre-empt tissue collision in gastrulation - Nature
Flies have evolved two distinct strategies for managing mechanical stresses during embryogenesis: out-of-plane cell division in midges and transient out-of-plane tissue folding in fruit flies.
go.nature.com
September 9, 2025 at 7:37 PM
Nature research paper: Divergent evolutionary strategies pre-empt tissue collision in gastrulation
go.nature.com/4m3exrU
go.nature.com/4m3exrU
Fascinating observations and beautiful physical modeling from our very own @tomokiishibashi.bsky.social and Tatsuo Shibata. Do check it out.
Tiny molecular spirals in cells can scale up to control the twist and turn of entire tissues, an important step towards understanding left-right symmetry in tissues and organs.
buff.ly/2pSf3xS
buff.ly/2pSf3xS
September 9, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Fascinating observations and beautiful physical modeling from our very own @tomokiishibashi.bsky.social and Tatsuo Shibata. Do check it out.
@bipashadey29.bsky.social we wouldn’t have pulled it off without you. So lucky to have you head our effort.
Our heroes: Bipasha Dey in my lab, Verena Kaul and @girishkalephd.bsky.social in Steffen's lab. PI search committees: be on the look out for Bipasha and Girish. They do wonders. But not after Bipasha does some additional cool things with Pavel. Stay tuned! (6/9)
September 8, 2025 at 12:30 PM
@bipashadey29.bsky.social we wouldn’t have pulled it off without you. So lucky to have you head our effort.
One of my all time favorite quotes, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”, since the tender age of a skinny undergrad. (I’m still kind of skinny…) 🤣
The moral of the story is that building the #bridge between #evolution & #morphogenesis is hard. I still think it needs a concerted push, because, to paraphrase the classic: "Everything in biology, even the #CF, starts making sense in the light of evolution." I add, it is #stuff_that_matters (12/12)
September 7, 2025 at 7:46 AM
One of my all time favorite quotes, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”, since the tender age of a skinny undergrad. (I’m still kind of skinny…) 🤣
Thanks so much, Juan. Steffen and I are very lucky to count you as our friend. We are rooting for you to bring #mechanobiology and #morphogenesis to the next level with #Brillouin microscopy and #proteomics with embryos.
Great work from two great scientists that happen to be my friends too, so I am double happy, for Developmental Biology and for them and their groups!
Congratulations!!!!!! 🎉🎉Yu Chiun Wang and Steffen Lemke!!!!! @yuchiunwang.bsky.social
Congratulations!!!!!! 🎉🎉Yu Chiun Wang and Steffen Lemke!!!!! @yuchiunwang.bsky.social
Tissue 'tectonic' collision is detrimental, but flies found two distinct solutions! Gratifying and grateful to be included in this collective effort, w/ Steffen Lemke, to crack the (or 'a') code of #cephalicfurrow, now out in @nature.com, all with @paveltomancak.bsky.social at the helm. (1/9)
September 7, 2025 at 7:42 AM
Thanks so much, Juan. Steffen and I are very lucky to count you as our friend. We are rooting for you to bring #mechanobiology and #morphogenesis to the next level with #Brillouin microscopy and #proteomics with embryos.