Laboratory of Living Matter. Studying cellular mechanics and force generation in every way we can.
Joined April 2017
- Tweets 136
- Following 312
- Followers 1,203
- Likes 188
8 Photos and videos
Murrell Lab retweeted
30 Jun 2025
Self-organized criticality can occur in cellular systems, but its origins remain unclear. Now it is shown that cytoskeletal criticality is influenced by the F-actin architecture and myosin active stress.
nature.com/articles/s41567-0…
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18 Jun 2025
This piece of work cannot be done without the collaborative efforts with the @GareginPapoian lab at @UMD_CollegePark . We show both in vitro and in silico that actomyosin cortex exhibits criticality which can be tuned via mutual feedback between architecture and active stress.
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18 Jun 2025
Our latest paper in Nature Physics shows the actomyosin cortex self-organizes to a critical state via mutual feedback between dynamical F-actin structural remodeling and active stress. This further links cytoskeletal criticality to Anderson Localization. nature.com/articles/s41567-0…
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3 Jun 2025
Congratulations to Dr. Sun🥳! Onto the next chapter.
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Murrell Lab retweeted
🎓Congratulations to Dr. Zachary Gao Sun! He earned his PhD in Physics @yalephysics in the @murrell_lab researching mechanics of the cell cytoskeleton.
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Murrell Lab retweeted
30 Apr 2025
Congratulations to the Yale Systems Biology Institute’s Michael Murrell, who has received support from @HFSP for an has intercontinental project spanning the US, UK and South Africa to uncover the driving force in cyanobacteria bit.ly/MurrellHFSP
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21 Feb 2025
Get your hands into oobleck - a material that feels as hard as a block of cement when you slap its surface, yet is too liquid to hold in your hand! Soft matter physics and Biophysics can be so much fun!
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Congratulations to @SunGaoZachary and @melodydibona who were awarded the Physical Cell Biology Student Award and Early Career Award at the @biophysicalsoc meeting today. We’re proud to sponsor both awards and recognize Zachary and Melody’s great work. 🎉
ALT A graphic with blue text on a white background. It reads “PRX Life is honored to sponsor the Physical Cell Biology Early Career Award offered to Dr. Melody Di Bona of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, at the BPS Annual Meeting in Los Angeles California, February 15-19, 2025.” At the bottom is the PRX Life logo and text reading “Margaret L. Gardel, lead editor, PRX Life” along with a link to the journal website. On the right side of the image is a swirl of purple, black, and blue with a dark blue curved line through it.
ALT A graphic with blue text on a white background. It reads “PRX Life is honored to sponsor the Physical Cell Biology Student Award offered to Zachary Gao Sun of Yale University, at the BPS Annual Meeting in Los Angeles California, February 15-19, 2025.” At the bottom is the PRX Life logo and text reading “Margaret L. Gardel, lead editor, PRX Life” along with a link to the journal website. On the right side of the image is a swirl of purple, black, and blue with a dark blue curved line through it.
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22 Nov 2024
Have you ever heard of the addition of connectivity without the penalty of an increase in rigidity of the network?
The work piece of our latest rheological study on in vitro cytoskeletal materials by our PhD student, Zachary Sun, is finally out today!
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13 Nov 2024
Check out our latest in vitro actomyosin cortex liposome work by Dr. Ryota Sakamoto! First paper to quantify and characterize the mechanical power and chemical energy consumption during cell division-like processes! On Nature Communications: doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-5…
10 Nov 2024
Mechanical power is maximized during contractile ring-like formation in a biomimetic dividing cell model
nature.com/articles/s41467-0…
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Murrell Lab retweeted
15 Oct 2024
New Preprint! How can cells polarize in the absence of a stimulus? We suggest a surprising biophysical mechanism, protein caging!
We reveal how the complex mechanical interactions at the cell surface lead to symmetry breaking.
biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
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Murrell Lab retweeted
12 Sep 2024
West Campus scientists at the Systems Biology Institute have discovered the thermodynamic principles underpinning energy use in our cells - and a potential pathway to tackle diseases like cancer bit.ly/wave-patterns @murrell_lab @NaturePhysics
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2 Jan 2024
Happy new year from LLM!
Our latest article on in vitro reconstituted systems: 'Cofilin-mediated actin filament network flexibility facilitates 2D to 3D actomyosin shape change' in EJCB special issue 'In vitro reconstitution of cytoskeletal processes'
sciencedirect.com/science/ar…
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Murrell Lab retweeted
27 Mar 2023
Visualization of f-actin within liposomes during their adhesion, spreading and rupture reveals mechanical interactions of membrane and cytoskeleton can lead to complex cellular assembly in absence of cellular biochemical regulation. @murrell_lab
nature.com/articles/s42003-0…
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6 Mar 2023
If you happen to be at the APS March Meeting 2023, please feel free to stop by our talks! #apsmarch @APSMeetings
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Murrell Lab retweeted
18 Aug 2022
Very proud of this collaboration with @murrell_lab and the perseverance of the authors through a long and exhausting peer review process.
17 Aug 2022
Observations of pressure-driven motion of cells reveal a novel type of cell migration and cooperation between cellular- and tissue-level forces, with implications for cancer cell movement and early organism development. Read go.aps.org/3QRyUJm #PRXjustpublished #openaccess
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22 Aug 2022
A long but rigorous and constructive review at @PhysRevX finally resulted in our latest manuscript, where we demonstrate a novel pressure-driven flow of cells out of a cell aggregate.
17 Aug 2022
Observations of pressure-driven motion of cells reveal a novel type of cell migration and cooperation between cellular- and tissue-level forces, with implications for cancer cell movement and early organism development. Read go.aps.org/3QRyUJm #PRXjustpublished #openaccess
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22 Aug 2022
Yale News covered our recent work on pressure-driven flows in cell aggregates that appeared recently in @PhysRevX. We thank @YaleWestCampus for their support and Jon Atherton for condensing 3 papers into this great story.
17 Aug 2022
The @murrell_lab has taken a fresh look at how cells move, revealing similarities between the behavior of #cancer cell tissue and the simplest water droplets bit.ly/droplets-cells @PhysRevX @YaleSEAS
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Murrell Lab retweeted
22 Mar 2022
PRFluids Letter: Gradients in solid surface tension drive Marangoni-like motions in cell aggregates
Vikrant Yadav, et al.
Letter: go.aps.org/3ui1xFZ
Laser ablation of cell aggregates shows how surface tension can induce rapid deformations in tissue shape maintenance
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22 Mar 2022
Check our latest paper in the journal Physical Review Fluids. Here we report motion in tissues that resemble Marangoni-like flows in fluids, except that it is being driven by solid-like surface tension.
journals.aps.org/prfluids/ab…
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