What’s New?
Research News, Highlights & Events
28 November 2025
Yohalie Kalukula successfully defended her public PhD thesis entitled “The actin cortex acts as a mechanical memory of morphology in confined migrating cells.”
Congratulations, Yohalie on this excellent defense! 👏🏻
Many thanks to Sandrine Etienne-Manneville (Institut Pasteur) and Benoit Ladoux (Max Planck Zentrum Physics and Medecine) for accepting the role of external reviewers !
06 November 2025
Our recent work on the mechanical memory of confined cells, published in Nature Physics, has just been highlighted in Nature News & Views !
🧠 “Memory foam skeleton in cells helps them to navigate”
👉 Check out the article in Nature.
03 November 2025
What if the mechanical forces acting on our cells could become new allies in the fight against disease ?
This question lies at the heart of the research conducted by the SYMBIOSE Laboratory, which has just been featured in Science Advances.
👉 Check out the article on UMONS News 👉 Check out the article on DHnet
Event recap video of the CellMech 2025 conference at Leuven
01 november 2025
Discover the CellMech 2025 Event Recap Video, showcasing the highlights of this landmark edition that brought together over 280 researchers from around the world to share the latest advances in mechanobiology.
A look back at three days of science, innovation, fun, and community in mechanobiology !
23 october 2025
Sylvain Gabriele was appointed Nikon Microscopy Ambassador by Alain Angele, General Manager of Nikon Healthcare Europe, during the inauguration of the AdHuCell platform (Advanced Human Cell Culture for Health and Biosciences) on Thursday, October 23, 2025.
23 october 2025
The University of Mons has inaugurated AdHuCell (Advanced Human Cell Culture for Health and Biosciences), a new platform dedicated to cell bioengineering and organoids-on-chip technologies. AdHuCell aims to accelerate translational research and develop alternatives to animal experimentation, in partnership with Nikon Europe and industrial stakeholders.
17 october 2025
Amandine Deridoux successfully defended her public PhD thesis entitled “Tube feet dynamics drive adaptation in sea star locomotion.”
Congratulations, Amandine on this excellent defense! 👏🏻
01 october 2025
Sylvain Gabriele has been appointed Francqui Research Professor by the Francqui-Stitching Foundation. This prestigious three-year mandate allows him to suspend his teaching duties and dedicate himself fully to his research activities, fostering new advances in cell mechanobiology and biomaterials
👉 Check out the article on UMONS News
30 sept - 03 october 2025
Our lab co-organized with KULeuven the 10th Biennial European Cell Mechanics Meeting, CellMech 2025 in Leuven, Belgium.
We welcomed more than 280 researchers from around the world who came to share the latest advances in mechanobiology.
08 september 2025
Marine Luciano, FNRS Research Associate at the SYMBIOSE Lab (UMONS), was interviewed by Pascal Vrebos on LN24 as part of the “Portraits de chercheurs” series.
👉 Check out her interview by clicking here
25 August 2025
Our manuscript “The actin cortex acts as a mechanical memory of morphology in confined migrating cells” is published in Nature Physics !
Huge congrats to Yohalie for this impressive work 👏🏻
👉 Check out the article on UMONS News !
07 june 2025
Our laboratory spent a wonderful week on a mountain lab retreat in Peyresq with our friends from the Microtiss group from the LiPhy laboratory in Grenoble.
Science, fun, and hiking were all part of the experience !
28 may 2025
Our manuscript “Designing hydrogel dimensionality to investigate mechanobiology” is now available online in Soft Matter. This article is part of the themed collection: Soft Matter Pioneering Investigators
14 may 2025
Our lab is co-organizing the 10th Biennial European Cell Mechanics Meeting at KU Leuven, taking place from September 30 to October 3. We’re excited to announce that the scientific program is now online!
https://cellmech2025.org/programme/
07 may 2025
Our lab tested the new THUNDER Imager Cell Spinning Disk from Leica. Thanks to the Leica Belgian team for this impressive demo on site !
03 may 2025
Our new preprint “Tube feet dynamics drive adaptation in sea star locomotion” about the locomotion of sea stars is now online on bioRxiv ! Congrats to Amandine and thanks to our collaborators: Sina Heydari, Stanislav N. Gorb, Eva A. Kanso and Patrick Flammang
19-20 december 2023
We tested the new AX R NSPARC super-resolution confocal microscope at the Nikon Bioimaging Lab in Leiden, Netherlands 🔬
Thanks to Nikon Healthcare Europe for their support !
04 december 2023
Our lab hosted Prof Neil LIN (University California, Los Angeles, USA) and Prof Joachim Rädler (Ludwig Maximilians, Germany) for the Mechanobiology Seminar Series
21 november 2023
Very honored to have been invited to start the ARC Seminar Series at Glasgow University in Scotland. Very impressive visit !
Thank you Delphine Gourdon for the kind invitation !
03 november 2023
Our work on lobular epithelial tissues published in Advanced Healthcare Materials has been highlighted in Advanced Science News !
> Click here for a link to the article
26 October 2023
Thanks to the F.R.S.-FNRS for the great fundamental research evening at Bozar Brussels !
26 september 2023
Congratulations to Yohalie for giving a great oral presentation at CellMech 2023 ! 👏🏻
26 september 2023
Great week at Marseille (France) for the CellMech 2023 conference on cell mechanobiology !
The entire team was there, sharing exciting discussions and discoveries in the field 🤓
19 september 2023
A great day of brainstorming and intense scientific discussions about the running research projects and collabs in the lab 👏🏻
21 june 2023
Marine Luciano has obtained a 3 years “Chargé de Recherches” fellowship from FRS-F.N.R.S.
Congrats Marine and welcome back ! 👏🏻 #proudPI 🤩
21 june 2023
Maxime Mansy has obtained a 4 years PhD fellowship from FRS-F.N.R.S in co-supervision with Prof Mathieu Surin. Congrats to him !
21 may 2023
Congratulations to Giuseppe Ciccone, visiting student from the University of Glasgow, for receiving an EMBO scientific exchange grant to visit us ! We are delighted you have joined the group !
19 may 2023
Sylvain was invited to visit UCLA with exciting scientific discussions on cell mechanobiology with Amy Rowat, Yan Song, Jimmy Hu, Julia Mack, Neil Lin and many others !
12 may 2023
Huge congratulations to Yohalie who won the prize for the best poster presentation at ADV Days 2023 ! 👏🏻
12 may 2023
Science and also lot of fun at ADV Days 2023 ! Thanks to the organizers for the catamaran session to the Fort Boyard !
11 may 2023
The whole lab attended the ADV Days 2023 (Quantitative Approaches of Living Systems) at Ile d’Oléron in France. VIP room for the poster session !
02 april 2023
Welcome to Giuseppe Ciccone from the Centre for the Cellular Microenvironment at the University of Glasgow. Giuseppe is joining us for few months to work on cell mechanobiology using viscoelastic hydrogels.
30 march 2023
We are very happy to host Dr David Brückner from the Hannezo’s group at the Institute for Sciences and Technology (IST, Austria) to discuss about the theoretical aspects of collective cell migration. Very inspiring talks by Tsuyoshi and David !
20 march 2023
Welcome to Prof Tsuyoshi Hirashima from the Mechanobiology Institute of Singapore. Tsuyoshi visits our lab during a month thanks to an ASEM-Duo project to work on FRET imaging of ERK epithelial cells on corrugated hydrogels.
12 january 2023
Thanks to an ASEM-Duo project, Marine and Sylvain visit the Mechanobiology Institute of Singapore during a month to set up a photopolymerization technique of soft corrugated hydrogels in collaboration with the Hirashima’s lab.
16 december 2022
Many congratulations to Anthony who successfully defended his PhD Thesis on mechanically-activated microglial cells 👏🏻🥳
13 december 2022
Congratulations to Lucie who is awarded a 4 year PhD grant from FRIA-FNRS to work on the migration of tumoral epithelial cells on viscoelastic hydrogels 👏🏻🥳
13 december 2022
Our lab is awarded a Research Grant from F.R.S.-FNRS to work on 3D confined migrating cells, congrats to everyone and many thanks to F.R.S.-FNRS for the financial support ! 👏🏻🥳
01 december 2022
It’s a great pleasure to welcome Zoé, our new PhD student working on the collective motion of epithelial cells on curved substrates in collaboration with Prof Tsuyoshi Hirashima (MBI, Singapore) and Prof Edouard Hannezo (IST, Austria)
30 november 2022
It was time to introduce our Italian visiting student Eloisa Torchia from the Pascalini’s lab in Pavia to Belgian beer and cheese !
22 november 2022
Our manuscript about the migration of fish epithelial keratocytes against the flow is out in PNAS ! Great collaboration with Olivier Théodoly’s lab at Marseille. Congrats to Inès and Alex ! 👏🏻
07 november 2022
Very great time during Sylvain’s visit in the Francesco Pasqualini’s lab at Pavia, Italy. Hope to collaborate soon !
01 october 2022
Welcome to Hasna, our new Master student working on confined cell migration.
08 september 2022
We are really happy for have the new PRIMO system from Alveole company fully functional 👏🏻🥳 Thanks to F.R.S-FNRS for the financial support !
25 juin 2022
Yohalie and Sylvain were invited by Fabienne Vande Meerssche in the radio show “Les Eclaireurs” on RTBF La Première to discuss about nuclear deformations and their impact on healthcare. > Link to the website
25 juin 2022
Big up to Yohalie and Amadine, both PhD students in the group, who were speaking about mechanobiology, nuclear deformations and Seastar locomotion in Brussels downtown for Soapbox Science 👏🏻
10 june 2022
Our article about nuclear deformations in Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology has been highlighted in the June issue of the FRNS journal, congrats Yohalie !
10 june 2022
Sylvain has been appointed Associate Editor of Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, speciality Biomechanics 👏🏻
20 may 2022
Sylvain was invited at the Institute Jacques Monod to present the mechanobiology of collective epithelial systems
05 may 2022
Our review on nuclear deformations is published in Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology 👏🏻 🥳
Huge congrats to Yohalie for her hard work !
14 april 2022
Lunch break for celebrating Easter and the visit of Marine from the Roux’ lab (Geneva, Switzerland).
06 april 2022
Super proud of my PhD students Amandine Deridoux and Yohalie Kalukula, next speakers at the 2022 edition of Soapbox Science at Brussels ! On June 25, Amandine and Yohalie will bring you their research fresh from the lab 👏🏻.
28 march 2022
Congrats to Anthony for his review manuscript on Multiscale Mechanobiology in Brain Physiology and Diseases published in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology 👏🏻.
17 fev 2022
Our article in Nature Physics about the role of the matrix curvature in epithelial tissues has been highlighted in FNRS News ! Congrats to Marine 👏🏻.
21 march 2022
Congrats to Anthony for receiving a travel grant from the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles ! Anthony will visit the Saudou’s lab at the Grenoble Institute for Neurosciences (Grenoble, France)
19 march 2022
Congrats to Marine for her review manuscript about the role of cell shape changes in the mechanobiology of epithelial cells published in Biophysics Reviews 👏🏻.
14-28 fev 2022
We have the pleasure to host Omar El Hamoui (France) for 2 weeks to discuss about hydrogels, viscoelasticity and mechanobiology.
08-09 fev 2022
We have the pleasure to host Fabio Manca from the University of Aix-Marseille (France) to discuss about theoretical biophysics and cell migration.
04 fev 2022
Congrats to Eléonore for her public PhD defense about the migration of small epithelial clusters. Huge achievement ! Thanks to Benoit Ladoux and Morgan Delarue for joining us a jury members.
21 jan 2022
Marie was awarded best poster prize at the AQV days organized by the Institut Jacques Monod in Paris. Congrats Marie !
19-21 jan 2022
The group attended the 2022 AQV days “quantitative approaches to living systems” organized by the Institut Jacques Monod in Paris with great posters and science. Thanks to everyone involved!
23 dec 2021
Despite the cold weather, the group was out for celebrating the end of 2021 with great food, beers and x-mas hot wines.
17 dec 2021
Sylvain was awarded the 2016-2020 Louis Melsens prize from the Academic Royale de Belgique for his achievements in physics and chemistry for biology.
Thanks to the team, past and present !
07 dec 2021
Amandine obtained a 4 year PhD grant from FNRS-FRIA to work on the migration of seastars in collaboration with Prof Patrick Flammang. Well done Amandine !
23 nov 2021
The Fonds de la Recherche Médicale en Hainaut (FRMH) has selected Yohalie’s project for funding ! Her project aims to understand the role of the nuclear deformations during the confined migration of tumoral cells. Congrats Yohalie !
28-29 oct 2021
The group attended the BSCDB autumn meeting on Mechanobiology in cell biology and developmental biology at Ghent, Belgium. Sylvain, Anthony and Eléonore deliver a lecture and many posters were presented. Thanks to everyone involved !
06 oct 2021
Our’s paper on the role of inflammatory molecules released by mechanically injured astrocytes on cortical neuronal networks is out in ACS Chemical Neuroscience. Congrats Joséphine and Anthony !
06 oct 2021
Welcome to Lucie, our new Master Thesis student. Lucie will work on the development of 2D and 3D photopolymerized GelMA hydrogels.
24 june 2021
Ines was awarded the prize of the Research Institute for Biosciences for the Oustanding Master Thesis. Well done Inès !
19 jan 2021
Marie’s paper about the role of haptotactic gradients on the dynamics of wound closure in epithelial tissues is out in Scientific Reports !
18 jan 2021
Tiffany and Marine were interviewed to present the Interreg V Mat(t)isse project. Mat(t)isse aims at designing a new bioprosthesis, a class 3 implantable medical device, which helps the body restore removed tissues after a breast curative surgery.
23 oct 2020
Marine successfully defended her PhD Thesis about the role of the matrix curvature on the mechanics of epithelial tissues. Congrats Marine, very proud of you !