Research: #membrane biophysics, #condensates, #electroporation, synthetic biology, minimal cell, #giantvesicles.Opinions are of RD
Potsdam, Germany
Based in Germany
- Tweets 706
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🙏A HUGE THANK YOU to our sponsors who made #BiomembraneDays2025 possible:
@Abberior •Critical Insights in Biophysics •Ernst Rudolf Schloeßmann Foundation •DFG (German Research Foundation) •@J_Cell_Sci •@Lipotype_Global •@NanionTech •@PicoQuant •@refeynit •@Co_Biologists
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🎉Finally: tomorrow Sept 29 we open BIOMEMBRANE DAYS 2025 in Berlin:
3 days packed with exciting science on membranes!
Looking forward to an amazing program of invited & contributed talks, posters & lively discussions.
🔗biomembrane-days-2025.mpikg.…
@EwersLab T.Weikl @MpiciPotsdam
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And huge thanks to our sponsors:
@Abberior • Ernst Rudolf Schloeßmann Foundation • DFG (German Research Foundation) • @J_Cell_Sci • @Lipotype_Global • @NanionTech • @PicoQuant • @refeynit
See you in Berlin!
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📢Registration is open for the Biomembrane Days 2025!
🔗biomembrane-days-2025.mpikg.…
A top-notch lineup of speakers, 120 posters, 200 scientists
📜Submit an abstract by July 14
🏆3 Poster prizes
⚠️Limited spots - previous events were fully booked!
#BiomembraneDays2025 #CellMembranes
ALT https://biomembrane-days-2025.mpikg.mpg.de/
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👉 a🦋thread about a new study from our group:
bsky.app/profile/dimovalab.b…
@NatureComms @agumangia @PotsdamScience
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📢BIOMEMBRANE DAYS in Berlin Sept 29 - Oct 1, 2025
Find more in 🦋:
bsky.app/profile/dimovalab.b…
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Yes, condensation NOT buffering intracellular osmolarity is obvious in experiments with giant vesicles #artificialcells. See e.g. pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.102… where changes in osmolarity outside a vesicle triggers condensation inside simply because the membrane is permeable to water.
Macromolecular condensation is unlikely to buffer intracellular osmolality
doi.org/10.1101/2024.05.24.5…
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📢Our new website is live! 🎉 Still a few glitches to fix, but we're excited to share it with you. Check it out: dimova.de
And one more news: we are also now in BlueSky @DimovaLab.bsky.social 🦋
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🥳Congratulations to @NwkTam for defending his PhD🎓with suma cum laude!
Nicky explored the interactions of extracellular vesicles with extracellular matrix environments
bit.ly/4h7dWnv
bit.ly/49Cy4dm
@MpiciPotsdam @PotsdamScience @amaia_cipitria @imprs_multi_bio
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The milestones of Mina's dissertation work focused on photomanipulation of membranes (bit.ly/47YvGvP) and photo-induced condensate endocytosis (bit.ly/3AAgtGv) published in Adv. Sci. @AdvPortfolio
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Very proud of Mina Aleksanyan who defended her thesis with "suma cum laude"! Congratulations Mina! And thanks to @ewers_helge for chairing the disputation @FU_Berlin!
@MpiciPotsdam @PotsdamScience
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📢 Open PhD position as part of #MSCA network of 17 students
@ComeInCell
Interested in exploring membrane stability/repair & #condensates ?
Check out & apply:
👉bit.ly/4fd8HRU
The project will include secondments at
@SaricLab, @MarquesLab & @NatureComms
ALT https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06726-w
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📢Hiring for a PhD position as part of #MSCA network of 17 students
@ComeInCell
Want to manipulate #condensates💧& membranes with light🌈?
Check out/apply:
👉bit.ly/4feLT4u
The project includes secondments at
@KGanzinger, Rossi Lab bit.ly/4hrJYel &
@NatureComms
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Honored to be part of an impressive ComeInCell team of 14 PIs, 6 academic partners and 7 companies in 9 countries! Funded by @ERC_Research @UKRI_News
We are looking for 17 motivated PhD students interested in #synthetic_biology #membranes #condensates
👉comeincell.org/
We're super excited to launch ComeInCell- a doctoral network aimed to develop advanced cellular mimics that integrate functional membrane structures and biomolecular condensates. With a team of 14 PIs and 13 associated partners, this will be an exciting journey!
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It was a great pleasure visiting @GAnderluh @kemijski, having such great discussions and being awarded he honorary lectureship.
Starting a Pregl lecture @kemijski by Rumiana Dimova @DimovaLab, Fantastic images of giant unilamellar vesicles and a lot of very useful insights into physics of these large membraneous structures.
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Excited to share @NwkTam work @acsnano on extracellular vesicle(EV) mobility in collagen I hydrogels! With @amaia_cipitria @agumangia &A.Becker @MpiciPotsdam,we explored how integrins on EV surfaces influence EV movement through tissue-like environments
👉bit.ly/4h7dWnv
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(7/8) How do we know it is a double membrane sheet?
3D STED microscopy is helpful, and also a great expert - thanks to Ziliang Zhao!
The tube-to-sheet transition can be mapped on a morphology diagram based on experimental DMS profiles - thanks to @VahidSatarifard & R.Lipowsky!
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(6/8) Here is a movie if you don't believe🧐
Watch out for the balloon🎈- this is the double membrane sheet that forms at the tip of the membrane nanotube and is pulled to the rim of the condensate wetting the GUV membrane
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(5/8) BUT! the tubes at the condensate interface can also transition into double-membrane sheets (DMS) when you supply more membrane (deflate the GUV more). The DMS either grow from the tube tip or coalesce at the interface.
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(4/8) We also know that biomolecular condensates can remodel (initially flat) membranes; see review of @agumangia @AnnualReviews with full text available at bit.ly/3P6vELG
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Membranes have ways of keeping us intrigued🤩by their shape transformations. Here, tube-sheet transitions (like in the #ER & #autophagosomes) is driven by #condensate wetting
@PNASNews @MpiciPotsdam @PotsdamScience
bit.ly/3XzHgfk
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Thank you for the great review and the cool tweetorial Markus!
Hello, my absolutely lovely membrane peeps! Would you maybe, pretty-please, let me proudly steer you to a MINI-REVIEW I recently wrote? It’s on asymmetric membranes in general, and differential stress in particular—subjects that I am massively interested in right now!
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And when we shine UV light, the condensate wetting the membrane can be engulfed because of the excess area azo-PC creates.
And there you go: you have a mimetic system for reversible endocytosis.
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We then bring these azo-PC-doped GUVs in contact with #condensates. We also know that biomolecular condensates and GUVs can remodel each other;
see review @AnnualReviews with full text available at bit.ly/3P6vELG
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We use the photoswitchable lipid azo-PC @AvantiLipids. The area of #GUVs doped with azo-PC can increase up to around 20-30% under UV light irradiation.
Azo-PC also modulates the membrane properties (bending rigidity, thickness, capacitance), see: bit.ly/47YvGvP
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Shine some UV light and a vesicle eats a condensate. Switch it off, and it releases it. Here is how this works (Adv Sci)
doi.org/10.1002/advs.2023098…
With the great coauthors @agumangia M.Aleksanyan @macasiri @TsuWangSun & R.Lipowsky @MpiciPotsdam @PotsdamScience
read more 👇(1/4)
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Exciting findings from @NwkTam, @amaia_cipitria & O. Schullian on how biomimetic tissue environments impact vesicle diffusion and how membrane properties influence diffusivity in hydrogel matrices. @BiophysJ @MpiciPotsdam @PotsdamScience @imprs_multi_bio bit.ly/49Cy4dm
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Biomolecular #condensates interact with membranes in intricate ways. Here is a review in @AnnualReviews
coauthored by @agumangia, where we discuss lipid-anchored and non-anchored condensates. @MpiciPotsdam @PotsdamScience
bit.ly/4bRb2Rn
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When biomolecular condensates interact with membranes, you can witness quite a spectrum of 🤩 events from wetting phenomena and membrane ruffling to pore plugging. Come to the #BPS2024 talk on Tuesday of @agumangia and his poster B143
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Is calcium a good fusogen? Come to the #BPS2024 flash talk of Matilde @AccorsiMembrane and find out on Tuesday 10:05 room 204AB
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Interested in / want to learn something about #GiantVesicles? Be welcome to my talk at the #BPS2024 today at 1:30PM in room 201C at the Biophysics 101 session.
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Come to my poster B281 today and I promise to tell you (almost) all the secrets of reversibly expanding membranes and engulfing condensates by light. 🤩
And if you miss it (which you shouldn’t) come for a wrap-up flash talk at 5:55PM room 204C
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I don’t want to brag but I think I got an even more amazing thank-you mug from Mareike Stephan for her PhD 🤩😛
Just look at the bilayer composition, intricate curvature and tubulated & budding GUVs #WhatToDoWithYourPhD @MpiciPotsdam @PotsdamScience
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3/3 Tuning membrane lipid packing and hydration is a general mechanism behind membrane wetting by condensate droplets as it applies also to PEG-dextran aqueous two-phase systems.
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2/3 We used environmental sensitive dyes (in the membrane and in the condensates) as reporters for hydration and crowding and employed phasor analysis of hyperspectral and lifetime imaging microscopy.
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What does a protein condensate wetting a lipid membrane do? Simple answer: it condenses the lipids increasing their packing. Read more about the nice work of @agumangia @macasiri @NwkTam and Z. Zhao @MpiciPotsdam & our great collaborator @MalacridaLab
1/3👇rdcu.be/dnhr6
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6/6 Scientists have seen protein-rich droplets for decades (see example of wetting and remodeling of the vacuolar membrane by storage protein condensates in plants). Only now we can start to grasp the remodeling potential of biomolecular condensates.
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4/6 When enough (excess) membrane area is available, it gets recruited to the condensate-vesicle interface forming spectacular finger-like protrusions. This ruffling can be suppressed if one pulls on the vesicle with a micropipette.
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3/6 The contact angles can be used to quantify the interaction irrespective of droplet and vesicle sizes. Condensate wetting slows down lipid diffusion. It also increases packing (see new work with @agumangia @MalacridaLab: bit.ly/3WrSLTj)
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2/6 We have looked at droplets and membranes for a while. Aqueous two-phase systems (#ATPS) of PEG & dextran can wet, be engulfed and tubulate membranes, see e.g. bit.ly/45jOAx1. Protein-rich droplets are not very different and also exhibit wetting transitions:
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What happens when a #condensate droplet meets a membrane? They can mutually remodel each other in a spectacular way.🤩Wetting, dewetting or partial wetting is modulated by salinity & membrane charge.
1/6 Read story👇rdcu.be/dcGLf
@NatureComms @agumangia @MpiciPotsdam
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Super-duper excited 🤩, extremely humbled 🥹 and somewhat nervous 😟 about giving the Thomas Thompson Award lecture at the #BPS23 meeting. I thank Felix Goni, @KayTrue Manuel Prieto and @MarquesLab for the support. @BiophysicalSoc @MpiciPotsdam
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If you fuse fluid vesicles with one that has gel domains, would you dissolve these domains? Yes. Here is how: bit.ly/3PEp2TT
@BiophysJ
Thanks Rafa Cavalcanti @BiophysLira Ella Ewins & Karin Riske
@MpiciPotsdam @unifesp
With the vesicles you can decorate a Christmas🎄🤩
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(1/2) We modified the phase-transfer method by introducing a new emulsification/incubation step. It was no surprise to find out that lipopolysaccharide diffusion coefficient decreases with coverage. We also introduced a new FRAP bleaching-half-a-vesicle-method to be more precise.
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Interested in bacterial membranes? The hairy ones with long lipopolysaccharides outside?
Here is how you can make them:bit.ly/3FHKtic @BiophysJ
Thanks Mareike Stephan @DunsingValentin
@ShreyaPrmnk Salvo Chiantia Steffi
Barbirz @LabRobinson
@MpiciPotsdam @unipotsdam
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