iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

Something completely unrelated to science: Building a snowman in Glasgow with my son on Easter morning was a rather unexpected but fun event 😀⛄!

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Eran Meshorer @meshorer.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

Extracellular environment stabilization of stem cell state identity via KDM3A👇🔥

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Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

The bumpy road leads to the nucleus--cool new mechanobiology!

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Barbieri Mariano PhD @barbierimarianophd.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

Fantastic work connecting mechanotransduction stimuli, changes in 3D nuclear structure and cell identity! Must read

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

It finally happened. I'm beyond happy to see this work with @carmeloferrai.bsky.social is out now. This collaboration to study the link between mechanotransduction and epigenetic regulation started quite a while ago. It is kind of a miracle that we eventually got to this point against all odds.

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

War bestimmt das beste Start-up Projekt, da bin ich mir ganz sicher...🤮

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

I would call it the "Matthew effect" grant! Why is it that we always demand to "listen to the science", but when it comes to science related to the flaws and issues of our current research funding structure (and scientific publishing system for that matter), we are completely ignorant...?

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

Completely wrong direction imo. It would be better and more efficient to increase funding rates of existing schemes funding more of the already fundable, great ideas for projects that are out there instead of yet another call with, most probably, less than 10% success rate.

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Guillaume Jacquemet @guijacquemet.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

Your periodic reminder that science is not done by a few selected "stars scientists". Science is done by hundred of thousands. Siloed money mean a few flashy discoveries and a lot of waste. Want to change things? Make funding accessible and stop funding calls with less than 2% success rate.

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Christophe 🔬 Leterrier @christlet.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

ERC success rates are tanking and the move is... even bigger grants for fewer people? smh

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

Jane Goodall, one of my inspirations to study biology. What a big loss for humanity! RIP

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CellMech2025 @cellmech2025.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

🧵A thread of threads of our invited speakers 👇

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

On my way to CellMech25 in Leuven! I'm really looking forward to catching up with the Mechanobiology community! First time as Lecturer @unistrathclyde.bsky.social&PI @theglasgowcemi.bsky.social with parts of my group (Extra) Cellular Mechanobiology in Health and Disease @dylanjfowler.bsky.social 🤩!

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 23/09/2025

Congratulations Carmelo and team, brilliant work showing that mechanostimuli (through sound waves) can provoke nuclear chromatin responses in mesenchymal stem cells which directs the cells towards osteogenic lineage🤩!

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

The core team of the Tenovus Scotland-funded Small Pilot Grant project "Leveraging mechanobiology for the optimisation of in vitro muscle-related disease models" is on the case😊, with a strong 4th&5th year students-driven component! @unistrathclyde.bsky.social @theglasgowcemi.bsky.social

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University of Strathclyde @unistrathclyde.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

Strathclyde named Scottish University of the Year and Runner-Up UK University of the Year by The Times and Sunday Times www.strath.ac.uk/whystrathcly...

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

Very interesting story on the nuclear mechanoresponse to sono-stimulation!

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Carmelo Ferrai @carmeloferrai.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

EpiSci - 🧬 - 🧪 - 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽 We just submitted an updated version of the previous preprint. Sonoepigenetic Modification Mechanoprimes Early Osteogenic Commitment in Mesenchymal Stem Cells www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

biorxiv.org

Sonoepigenetic Modification Mechanoprimes Early Osteogenic Commitment in Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Cells effectively balance and integrate numerous pathways to adapt to external signals in an attempt to regain homeostasis, although the complex nuclear mechanotransduction mechanism through which thi...

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

We are very happy 😄 that our Rheinland-Pfalz & Scotland exchange project started, jointly awarded by @sulsa.bsky.social and JGU Scotland Hub, sponsored by the governments of 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 & Rheinland-Pfalz. 1/2 @unistrathclyde.bsky.social @theglasgowcemi.bsky.social @imbmainz.bsky.social @unimainz.bsky.social

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

BioMedEng25 is over! I really enjoyed my talk&the opportunity present my research. I also talked about unpublished work from a collaboration with @carmeloferrai.bsky.social that is getting closer&closer to being deposited on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social. Stay tuned 😀! @biomedeng25.bsky.social

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Andy Moore @aaandmoore.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

This is an airyscan confocal movie of mitochondria (white) moving around in a mouse astrocyte. Actin filaments are in orange and microtubules are in blue.

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Artem K. Efremov @artemefremov.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

Our study on the mechanosensitive behavior of cell adhesion, showing the existence of a force-transmission mechanism that behaves very differently from the well-known 'load-and-fail' mechanism, was published in Nature Physics: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

A little more than a year that @carmeloferrai.bsky.social and I published our review "Mechanotransduction in stem cells"🤯! I'm happy that it was received well 😃! Stay tuned, more to come in this direction in a not too far future😎.

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

A paper that I published as a co-first author in 2014 (with G.M. Ferraris and V. Buttiglione, supervised by N. Sidenius, not on bluesky) reached 100 citations. Science social media weren't that big yet back then, so I seize this occasion to make a 🧵 about it now: 👉 www.embopress.org/doi/full/10....

embopress.org

The interaction between uPAR and vitronectin triggers ligand‐independent adhesion signalling by integrins | The EMBO Journal

image image Cell adhesion mediated by uPAR and other adhesion receptors triggers non‐canonical integrin activation independent of integrin–ligand interactions. The cross‐talk between adhesion recepto...

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Oded Rechavi @odedrechavi.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Getting something done at work

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Amrei Bahr @amreibahr.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

So ist es, liebes BMFTR: Die Chancen sind für jede Generation ✨vergleichbar schlecht✨! 12 Jahre prekäre Beschäftigung & anschließend fliegen die nicht mehr ganz so jungen Wissenschaftler_innen ins Weltall 🚀 … ah Moment … doch nicht … sie fliegen: RAUS! Das sind Chancen! #RundumSorglos #IchBinHanna

Screenshot der Website des BMFTR: „Chancen
• Die speziellen Befristungsregelungen des WissZeitVG eröffnen jeder Generation junger Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler vergleichbare Chancen auf wissenschaftliche Qualifizierung und langfristige Karriere-perspektiven in der Wissenschaft.“

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Please RT and/or give me a name if you think someone from underrepresented countries deserves a forum:

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

#Science Bluesky, do your thing: We're organising the International Symposium on Mechanobiology (ISMB) 2026 in #Glasgow & we're looking for research groups in Latin America & Africa who are doing great work in #Mechanobiology or adjacent areas. Can you indicate some names to me?

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

A brilliant idea that become a fantastic approach🤯:

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Giuseppe Di Caprio @giudica.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

At the Center of the Cellular Microenvironment’s impact workshop. Really enjoying the space to think together about where cell engineering and mechanobiology are headed. @theglasgowcemi.bsky.social @unistrathclyde.bsky.social

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

Very important publication highlighting the need for more realistic cell culture disease models that recapitulate better (patho)physiological conditions.

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Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

“The results revealed that researchers who received renewals without a funding gap were less likely to switch research topics and investigate a wide array of subjects than were those in the control group, and they produced papers featuring newer or more unconventional combinations of ideas”

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Retroactive or retrospective paper 🧵 (I like the term, thanks @nicopedroncelli.bsky.social):

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

This ligand binding-independent integrin signalling was driven by membrane tension. Indeed, the induction of this non-canonical integrin signalling was not restricted to uPAR/vitronectin interaction. This work introduced the cell membrane as a critical component of the molecular clutch.

Figure 7. uPAR/VN signalling requires cell adhesion, ECM rigidity and membrane tension
A.
uPAR‐induced signalling requires cell attachment. Cells expressing uPART54A were seeded on an anti‐uPAR monoclonal antibody (α‐uPAR) or on VNRAD (with uPA) for 30 min. For ‘off‐plate’ experiments, cells were incubated in suspension with these components. Phosphorylation of p130Cas SD is shown in percentage of the positive control, that is the same cells seeded on VNRAD in the presence of uPA (n ≥ 3, mean ± SEM). Representative blots are shown.
B.
uPAR‐induced cell spreading requires adhesion to a rigid matrix. Representative images of 293 cells expressing uPART54A plated in presence of uPA on hydrogels coated with VNRAD at different rigidity (soft: 0.7 kPa, Rigid: 40 kPa) for 30 min. Scale bar: 10 μm.
C.
Effect of plasma membrane relaxation on uPAR or integrin‐induced cell spreading. 293 cells expressing uPART54A were seeded on FN or VNRAD (with uPA) in presence of sucrose (150 mM) or deoxycholate (0.4 mM) for 30 min. Cell‐matrix contact area was quantified. Measurements represent at least 50 cells with indicated geometrical means ± 95% CI, in at least two independent experiments. The grey bars represent the range of cell area of not spread or fully spread uPART54A cells based on 95% CI on poly‐D‐lysine or on VN with uPA, respectively (Fig 2B).
D.
Increased membrane tension induces integrin‐dependent cell spreading. Cells were seeded on PDL for 30 min in presence or absence of 4B4. Where indicated, an equal volume of hypotonic buffer (H2O with 1 mM MgCl2 and 1.2 mM CaCl2) or isotonic (medium) buffer was added to increase plasma membrane tension. Cell‐matrix contact area was assayed and quantified. Measurements represent at least 50 cells with indicated geometrical means ± 95% CI, in at least two independent experiments. Representative DIC images of cells on PDL treated with isotonic or hypotonic medium are shown. Scale bar: 10 μm.

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

I delved even deeper into this a few years later, further highlighting the importance of talin-mediated molecular clutch force loading in this process: 👉 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Consistently, some years later (2019), Changede et al. (Sheetz group) showed the existence of integrin nanoclusters bridges build up by activated, but unliganded, integrins. The binding to the thin matrix fibres was mediated by integrins in this case, but it's intriguing to think that this 1/2

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

...can involve also other cell adhesion receptors (e.g., GPI-anchored, such as uPAR, or maybe syndecans, DDRs?) 2/2:

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Centre for the Cellular Microenvironment @theglasgowcemi.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Interesting 🧵on a classic mechanotransduction paper of one of our members introducing the concept of ligand binding-independent integrin signalling driven by membrane tension:

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

This study assessed the possibility of ligand-independent adhesion signalling by integrins, which was a quite controversial hypothesis at the time (maybe still is). We found that e.g. uPAR-mediated adhesion to vitronectin can induce integrin signalling that does not require integrin ligand binding:

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

embopress.org

The interaction between uPAR and vitronectin triggers ligand‐independent adhesion signalling by integrins | The EMBO Journal

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

The abstract submission deadline of BioMedGen2025 @biomedeng25.bsky.social has been extended. You still have the chance to submit until the 19th of May. Meet us all in Glasgow😊: 👉 biomedeng.org/biomedeng25/

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Totally agree. If Europe was serious in positioning itself as a new strong research hub in the world, we would need to invest hundreds of billions (as made available for weapons) not millions, that's basically just a drop in the ocean...

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

If Europe was serious in positioning itself as a new strong research hub in the world, we would need to invest hundreds of billions (as made available for weapons) not millions, that's basically just a drop in the ocean...

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

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Carsten Schulte @carstenschulte4.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

It is a fantastic and rare opportunity that doesn't come up very often, our Department of Biomedical Engineering is searching for a new Head of Department at @unistrathclyde.bsky.social in Glasgow (deadline 9th of May): strathvacancies.engageats.co.uk/Vacancies/W/...

strathvacancies.engageats.co.uk

Head of Department & Professor in Biomedical Engineering (681200)

Head of Department & Professor in Biomedical Engineering (681200), To provide leadership and strategic direction to maximise the Department’s performance in research, teaching and knowledge exchange; ...

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Marco Cantini @marcocantini.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Great to see that our work on #viscoelastic #hydrogels for #cartilage #TissueEngineering was one of the most-read papers in Advanced Healthcare Materials @mattjwalker.bsky.social @delphe.bsky.social @manlio-tassieri.bsky.social Check it out here doi.org/10.1002/adhm... 🧪

Top Viewed Article in Advanced Healthcare Materials in 2023

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