Kirsty Wan
@micromotility
Cilia and cell motility enthusiast, basal cognition, weird organisms esp protists and larvae, how do living systems compute? Professor of Cellular & Biophysical Dynamics, Living Systems Institute, Exeter (past: DAMTP, Cambridge) www.micromotility.com
A primary cilium & all the centriolar satellites? 🤔 Had a great time at @faseborg.bsky.social #cilia meeting learning that as we have always suspected, cilia are always at the centre (and indeed at the periphery) of everything!
We propose the following response hierarchy in tintinnid mechanosensitivity. Proving that once again, you don't need neurons to accomplish complex tasks like stimulus-dependent response selection...
In this ciliate, stronger vibrational cues cause whole-body contraction of the entire cell into its lorica! (which we associate with an energetically more costly defence response)
localised touch stimulation of the ciliary band trigger coordinated ciliary reversals and stereotyped transitions in waveform + frequency. Repeated simulation produces classical hallmarks of #habituation (a form of learning), incl. asymptotic response decline, recovery, and frequency dependence!
Do #tintinnids dream of electric sheep? 🤯 Here is a single cell capable of building a lorica and living inside it for protection... it also swims, feeds, hunts Can even detect and habituate to mechanical cues! #celllearning #protistsonsky #cilia Read more in our preprint doi.org/10.64898/202...
Made it to Leeds for the annual @ukcilianetwork.bsky.social meeting! Great opening talk by @helenfoster.bsky.social on how ciliary axonemes are assembled!! #cilia
A year ago I participated in a Strüngmann forum on Navigation Research, a truly fascinating meeting of minds from across #navigation research, from animal to human #behaviour to robotics and healthy aging. Our (heated) discussions resulted in this fun book chapter (free ⬇️) doi.org/10.1007/978-...
When conference participants take part in a human experiment... How to get a group of humans to spontaneously synchronize their walking behaviours in the absence of "leaders" (watch out for the one who was attempting to cheat the system!) What are the most important cues here? 😏 #EESBioOsc
Great to see our paper on light-intensity dependent swimming patterns in #Chlamydomonas out now in Phys Rev Lett. as an Editors' suggestion! With a nice commentary by @philipcball.bsky.social. Chlamy actively modulate the beat planes of their #cilia! journals.aps.org/prl/abstract... #protistsonsky
A rare opportunity to experience the grandeur of the Alte Aula of Universität Heidelberg, on the occasion of the award of the Lautenschläger prize to Jan Lohmann of @cosheidelberg.bsky.social Thanks @ulrichschwarz.bsky.social @jekely.biologists.social.ap.brid.gy for letting me tag along!
Congrats again Alexander! (Not on bluesky) You can read about some of his work here in our preprint doi.org/10.1101/2025... , with more to come! 🎉😏 #protistsonsky
Our findings highlight a remarkably modular and robust propulsion mechanism found in a marine larva, which relies on short-range physical interactions to achieve ciliary coordination. Thanks to Rebecca for all the hard work and @jekely.biologists.social.ap.brid.gy for the collaboration!
#platynereis is an excellent model for cilia dynamics and coordination, incl. how metachronal waves emerge - during a process known as ciliary closure. These events are neuronal controlled, allowing the larvae to finely control their position in the water column elifesciences.org/articles/26000
in fact, you can just keep removing cilia, until all but a single wavelength of the ciliary band remains. The tiny patch keeps propagating a metachronal wave! [watch video till the end] (see paper for other interesting details about these waves)
to test if spatial gaps could break wave transmission, we (Rebecca) started removing more and more cilia from this equatorial ring, finding that spatial continuity of the cilia within a single multiciliated cell is both necessary and sufficient for wave continuity
look at the discontinuities in the following kymograph (space-time plot of beat phase), turns out these come from the natural gaps between neighbouring multiciliated cells (each with several hundred cilia!).
with a single equatorial band made up of many many cilia. These propagate so-called 'metachronal waves', always in the same direction! The wave may look continuous, but in fact it's not!
What is a #Platynereis you might ask? I would never have encountered them were it not for @jekely.biologists.social.ap.brid.gy The adult worm is extremely ugly, in contrast, the larvae, is adorned with many cilia, which naturally makes them beautiful. The 2-day old larva is approximately spherical
Final version of our paper on ciliary metachronal waves out now in Science Advances! doi.org/10.1126/scia... This is the main thesis work of my PhD student Rebecca Poon, who caught many #platnereis larvae and tirelessly ablated them with a laser. THREAD
Thank you @bastinlab.bsky.social and Sylvie Friant for organising this amazing #cilia meeting! 🙏 So many interesting discussions, and not enough time! Just look at this beautiful venue... 🤩
Very sad to hear that Sir John Gurdon, former Master of Magdalene College, has passed away at the age of 92. www.cam.ac.uk/research/new... Here is a powerful reminder that you should never give up on your dreams.
Love #protists? Then you'd love this! Beautiful collection of hand-drawn critters represented here at the Oxford-Japan symposium on ethological dynamics in diorama environments sites.google.com/view/oxford-... #ciliates #testateamoeba #diatoms
The final version of our review on biological filaments is out in Philtrans A (w/@jcammann.bsky.social Hannah Laeverenz-Schlogelhofer & Marco Mazza) - we have 417 references! Enjoy :) doi.org/10.1098/rsta... (see also other articles in this special issue on biological fluid dynamics) #biophysics
Complex behaviour is not limited to animals! Here we map the entire spectrum of waveforms dynamics on a quadriflagellate single cell with 4x 70um (!) #cilia, to a low dimensional behavioural manifold with surprising structure! #protistsonsky All revealed in our new preprint doi.org/10.1101/2025...
oh good, now we also need to know the unit of the measure, I just want to buy ONE objective pls, not a herd of cows or a barrel of beer
Turns out, Chlamy can manipulate biflagellar dominance not only through beat waveform, phase, but also beat plane (!), in response to light stimuli. This extra degree of freedom, not often appreciated, leads to a highly robust navigation strategy spanning several orders in effective diffusivity!
So you think you understand everything about #Chlamydomonas photoresponses? think again! #protists #behaviour #cilia To explain how Chlamy switches handedness from swimming in CCW circles in low-light to CW in high-light... see our new preprint led by Alan Tsang (HKU) 👇 doi.org/10.1101/2025...
We have a postdoc opening for a protistologist with biophysics inclinations to join our @hfspo.bsky.social project! (focus will be on characterising the morphology, ultrastructure and behaviour of excavates) #protistsonsky Apply by Sept 17th (RTs appreciated!) jobs.exeter.ac.uk/hrpr_webrecr...
