News and Events Archive

How cells modulate their adhesion to the extracellular matrix (ECM) and to neighboring cells during mitotic cell rounding remained elusive. We recently deciphered that cell-ECM adhesion components are released prior to mitosis and are rewired to synergize with cadherins to strengthen adhesion to adjacent cells.

So far, it has remained elusive how cells initially sense and respond to fibrillar extracellular matrices during adhesion initiation and how this initial sensing continuously influences cell behavior. In our recent paper published in Advanced Science, we engineered biomimetic fibrillar fibronectin matrices using 3D-printed microgrids and simple solution shearing.

Until recently, it was assumed that cells simply burst and die at the end of their life. Now, a team of researches at the Biozentrum, University of Basel, the University of Lausanne and our group (Stefania Mari and group alumna Kristyna Pluhackova) have provided new insights into the final step of cell death.

Congratulations to Krishna, who defended his PhD thesis "Engineering novel tools for mechanotyping and mechanocontrol of neurons from the central nervous system" on 19th May 2023. As Krishna's thesis was a collaborative project with Andreas Hierlemann's group, he was also awarded a collaborative hat. Thank you very much for the great apero and party and congrats again!

Congratulations to Nina on defending her PhD thesis! Nina defended her PhD thesis "Characterization of folding pathways of polytopic transmembrane proteins" on 28th April 2023. She received the our group's first recycable and edible PhD hat. Thank you very much for the apero and the real Linzertorte!

Congratulations to Sophie on defending her PhD thesis! On Monday, 30th January, Sophie defended her PhD thesis "Mechanical Manipulation and Characterization of Single Cells with Nanotools ". As is tradition in our group, Sophie was awarded a signature Müller Force graduation hat. Thank you, Sophie, for the delicious apéro and congrats!

The results of this study from our group have been published in Nano Letters.

The results of the collaborative research project between our group and the Guan lab from Texas Tech University have been published in Structure.

The speakers at the Ethics of Engineering Life Conference held in September 2022 in Rome agreed on a pronouncement which calls for a continuation of the fruitful dialogue among different disciplines and relevant stakeholders, saying: “In a world in which engineering life is rapidly improving, and new challenges arise in its application, a common effort to disentangle the moral issues would imply universal benefits in terms of ethical admissibility and allow to find the right path forward”.

The results of our collaborative research project with Prof. Sebastian Hiller’s Lab from Biozentrum, University of Basel, have been published in Nature Communications.