Ricard Alert Zenón
@ricardalert.bsky.social
Physics Professor at Universitat de Barcelona. Research Group Leader at MPI-PKS and CSBD in Dresden. Theory of living matter. Collective phenomena in biology through the lens of active matter physics.
Amazing story! Congrats!
November 16, 2025 at 7:11 PM
Amazing story! Congrats!
Awesome work! :)
October 17, 2025 at 9:54 AM
Awesome work! :)
Theory and data analysis work done by postdoc MJ Franco-Oñate in my group.
October 2, 2025 at 8:04 AM
Theory and data analysis work done by postdoc MJ Franco-Oñate in my group.
This collaboration led by @katecavanaugh.bsky.social from @oweinerlab.bsky.social was particularly inspiring for me: The ideas of active wetting that we developed some years ago actually helped us understand a key biological process. We could not have hoped for more!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Active wetting of epithelial tissues - Nature Physics
An analogy with wetting has proven apt for describing how groups of cells spread on a substrate. But cells are active: they polarize, generate forces and adhere to their surroundings. Experiments now find agreement with an active update to the theory.
www.nature.com
October 2, 2025 at 8:04 AM
This collaboration led by @katecavanaugh.bsky.social from @oweinerlab.bsky.social was particularly inspiring for me: The ideas of active wetting that we developed some years ago actually helped us understand a key biological process. We could not have hoped for more!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
This project was motivated by our recent work on frictiotaxis with @mayorlab.bsky.social:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The new simulations show that the mechanism that we proposed still operates in a more complete model with that accounts for cell shape and for intercellular hydrodynamics.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The new simulations show that the mechanism that we proposed still operates in a more complete model with that accounts for cell shape and for intercellular hydrodynamics.
Frictiotaxis underlies focal adhesion-independent durotaxis - Nature Communications
Cells typically migrate toward stiffer substrates via durotaxis, relying on focal adhesions. Here, the authors show that confined cells can migrate up friction gradients without focal adhesions, revea...
www.nature.com
September 19, 2025 at 9:37 AM
This project was motivated by our recent work on frictiotaxis with @mayorlab.bsky.social:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The new simulations show that the mechanism that we proposed still operates in a more complete model with that accounts for cell shape and for intercellular hydrodynamics.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The new simulations show that the mechanism that we proposed still operates in a more complete model with that accounts for cell shape and for intercellular hydrodynamics.
Congrats, David! Super! :)
September 5, 2025 at 8:18 AM
Congrats, David! Super! :)
Water menisci are a key player in bacterial colonies. Capillary forces are strong and relevant at the bacterial scale! If you know of other roles of water capillary forces in collective cell dynamics, please let me know!
August 2, 2025 at 2:59 PM
Water menisci are a key player in bacterial colonies. Capillary forces are strong and relevant at the bacterial scale! If you know of other roles of water capillary forces in collective cell dynamics, please let me know!
n these streams, bacteria are densely packed but can still freely move past one another. Capillary forces allow bacteria to pack densely without cell-cell adhesion, avoiding jamming.
August 2, 2025 at 2:59 PM
n these streams, bacteria are densely packed but can still freely move past one another. Capillary forces allow bacteria to pack densely without cell-cell adhesion, avoiding jamming.