📢📢Hiring 2 Research Assistants & 2 Postdocs at Emory University in Atlanta to study cytoskeletal biophysics/biochemistry. Please RT.

RAs: great for recent bachelor's/master's in Physics/Bio/Chem/Biochem. Email CV and interests to shekhar@emory.edu.

More info: www.shekharlab.org

Presenting our lab's first PhD graduate, Dr. Heidi Ulrichs! 🎉🎓

Congratulations Heidi on such a successful PhD!

🎉🎉We’re on the cover of Nature Physics! @natphys.nature.com

Here is the original paper www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thrilled to be featured in The New York Times! @nytimes.com

Fantastic piece by @jack-tamisiea.bsky.social on our discovery of the role of physical forces in evolution! With insightful comments from @wcratcliff.bsky.social!

Excited to share our new paper in Nature Physics
@naturephysics.bsky.social: Cooperative hydrodynamics accompany multicellular-like colonial organization in the unicellular Stentor!

How do single-celled organisms benefit from teamwork?

9/11 Meet the dream team behind this work:
@eva and @GuoHanliang, pioneers in biological fluid dynamics who wove the elegant Stokeslet models to decode Stentor flows! @USC and @OhioWesleyan!

7/11 Fun fact: Stentor colonies are reversible. When food is scarce, cells detach to swim solo.

This flexibility hints at why early multicellular life could toggle between lone and group living. 🔄

6/11 Why does this matter? Colony formation by unicellular organisms may be an evolutionary stepping stone to multicellularity!

Faster flows = access to more prey. Dynamic partnerships prevent exploitation. No need for physical connections—just hydrodynamic cooperation!

4/11 Here’s the twist: Benefits are asymmetric!

Weaker feeders gain more from partnering than stronger ones. But don’t worry—no freeloading here! Colonies stay dynamic, with cells constantly swapping neighbors to share the perks.

⚖️ Teamwork makes the dream work!

3/11 Stentor cells anchor to surfaces and beat cilia to create feeding currents. Alone, they generate modest flows (~70 µm/s). But when they team up, something cool happens:

Colonies create faster, stronger currents—up to 3× faster! More flow = more food for everyone. 🍽️

2/11 Ever wondered how life transitioned from solo cells to complex multicellular organisms? We studied Stentor—a unicellular ciliate that forms dynamic colonies—to uncover the physics behind this evolutionary leap!

Spoiler: hydrodynamics plays a key role! 🌀

📢Excited to share our new paper in Nature Physics
@naturephysics.bsky.social: Cooperative hydrodynamics accompany multicellular-like colonial organization in the unicellular Stentor!

How do single-celled organisms benefit from teamwork? Let’s dive in! #Multicellularity nature.com/articles/s41...?

Score!!🎉 Ekram's CAP paper accepted in PNAS! @pnas.org

Interested in doing a postdoc on actin biophysics? Come talk to me at #cellbio2024!

I am exporting a tiff stack (top) to avi video (bottom) in Fiji. However there is a huge loss of resolution, especially for the overlay text. I was wondering if there is a workaround? Thank you so much in advance!!

Please RT!

I am excited and honored to be named 'Cell Scientist to Watch' by Journal of Cell Science @biologists.bsky.social
Grateful to my team and mentors for their support.

Interested in working on actin? Hiring Postdocs/Grad students!