Alex Bisson
🇧🇷🇺🇸Evolutionary Cell Mechanobiology of Archaea.
Associate Professor at Indiana University.
Standing tall on the shoulders of tiny (salty) bugs.
Lab Website: bissonlab.com
- Reposted by Alex Bisson🚨 Alarm!!! 🚨 AI/ML course for microscopy image analysis!!! 🧐 In 2026 at Janelia (@hhmijanelia.bsky.social), no tuition, housing and meals provided! Isn’t that borderline unbelievable?!? 20 students, ~14 TAs and lecturers 🗓️ June 4-18 2026 ✍️ Jan 15 2026 ✍️ 🔁 pls!! www.janelia.org/you-janelia/...
- Reposted by Alex BissonAnother #notTHECover unfortunately. But this gorgeous, Tron-like vibe, drawn by the amazing @munafomarzia.bsky.social for our recent #ExM work with @gautamdey.bsky.social & @centriolelab.bsky.social will still be printed out in the lab. Read here: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
- I am beyond excited to announce that the Bisson Lab has a new home!!! Starting January 2026, I will join the Biology Department at Indiana University Bloomington as Associate Professor with tenure. I am actively recruiting scientists across all levels. More in our website: bissonlab.com/join [1/4]
- We’ll continue to focus on archaeal cell mechanobiology and tool-building to study microbial life. I am deeply grateful to everyone at IU-Bio. It is a privilege to join a department with a foundational legacy in microbiology, shaped by figures such as Salvador Luria and Giuseppe Bertani [2/4]
- I also want to thank the Bisson Lab members (past and present) for the past 6 years of personal, professional, and intellectual growth. They taught me new fields and how to become a better manager (work in progress). They shared their passion for science and allowed me to share mine. [3/3]
- I would not be here if it wasn't for Brandeis University. They believed in me and that I would make a research program out of a couple of crazy ideas. I leave friends and active collaborators there. I will literally carry Brandeis motto “Truth, Even Unto Its Innermost Parts” with me forever. [4/4]
- I am (months) late, but you HAVE TO read @huepfkiesel.bsky.social (there is an update version). How can ParM "turned MreB” in cyanos? shorturl.at/JXMjy This will become a classic. Such a clear example of homology =/= function. We need more studies to collect larger sample sizes to test it.
- Reposted by Alex BissonEpisode 17 - perhaps my favorite yet. How do you write a forum.image.sc post that will get you the answers you need without revealing information you don't want to tell? @erinweisbart.bsky.social and I go through what the experts need to know to help you. Post your sci q's today on forum.image.sc !
- Reposted by Alex Bisson
[This post could not be retrieved] - Reposted by Alex Bisson"Electroboy" is my memoir about my battle with bipolar disorder and which is being made into a feature film with Timothee Chalamet. The book is out of print - I have h/c and p/b copies which I inscribe to you and ship overnight to you. The cost is $30 for a h/c and $20 for a p/c - send me a DM!
- This is one of my fav bac cell div papers. It's remarkable how much we've learned about cytokinesis in the past decade, and how much we still don't know. This paper harmonizes many of the disagreements in the field, like what limits construction rates (1/4)
- I’m excited that the work by Diego Ramirez and Lei Yin is out, where they gained several key insights into what provides the force underlying bacterial cell division doi.org/10.1101/2025.... To divide, cells must first bend the membrane inward, a process that’s energetically expensive
- Cell wall synthesis? Turgor fluctuations (periplasm and cytoplasm)? Membrane tension? Assembly of the cytokinetic ring? FtsZ treadmilling itself? The answer is: it does not matter because these are moving pieces, and physiological conditions are coupled with cell mechanics (2/4)
- Changed the biochemistry (pH, salt, substrate...)? Mechanics (osmolarity, electrical/magnetic field...)? Developmental program? Yeah, you are likely changing all the other outputs and shifting "bottlenecks". That's part of the "noisy" natural selection process (3/4)
- It is exciting to see how biophysics, cell biology, and systems biology are co-evolving as a field. Tech allows fast orthogonal data collection across conditions, moving away from "genetic pathway <-> function" and phenotypes alone can connect genes/proteins to mechanism (4/4)
- Reposted by Alex BissonIt bears repeating that nearly the entire US enterprise in science and technology has been irreversibly gutted. This is shocking. All this loss has occurred without any real benefit to the average US citizen. Except we now have the biggest, best funded secret police force perhaps ever. Yay for us!
- Reposted by Alex BissonCollective cell motion has many forms, but rotation is the coolest of them all. I'm @onenimesa.bsky.social , and in this short🧵, I'll highlight some instances of global tissue rotation like this one from @BauschLab
- Reposted by Alex Bisson[This post could not be retrieved]
- We all need both government and each other to survive in society. Let's contribite to support those who need.
- Reposted by Alex Bisson🎨 © René Magritte
- Reposted by Alex Bisson🍀🔬 CSLD5-mediated cell wall remodelling regulates tissue mechanics and shoot meristem growth @natcomms.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41... Movies: Cell division orientation in wild-type (attached) and csld5 (comment) shoot apical meristem.
- Reposted by Alex BissonNew preprint up now! Interested in the evolution of halophily within DPANN archaea we decided to investigate the sister phylum to the Nanohaloarchaeota, GTDB phylum EX4484-52, for which we propose the name Caliditerrarchaeota www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Reposted by Alex BissonCheck out this awesome study from my phenomenally talented colleague @accorsi-alice.bsky.social ! Apple snails can regrow their eyes! How do they do this? 👀 Read below ⬇️ to find out more! #regeneration
- Snails with human-like eyes?! Published in @natcomms.nature.com, the @planaria1.bsky.social & @accorsi-alice.bsky.social Labs have established apple snails as a novel model for studying vision restoration. They have complex camera-type eyes & the ability to regrow them in 28 days: bit.ly/4mvaxkq
- Reposted by Alex BissonI'm tired of people "liking" my #Epstein and #Trump posts. The point, folks, is to "repost" them. Spread the word about these two disgusting #pedophiles and #rapists
- Reposted by Alex BissonWith my memoir, "Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania," a chronicle of my battle with bipolar disorder about to be made into a feature film, I'm sharing this interview with Stephen Fry the English actor, comedian, writer, director, narrator, and broadcaster. Enjoy! www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUpt...
- Reposted by Alex BissonGreat opportunity! The Uni Vienna has launched a call (APART) for 4-funding for outstanding postdocs from a US institution. The host lab has to nominate by 1 August a candidate for further selection. Anyone interested in our work please contact me by email with CV/motivation letter. Hurry up!
- Reposted by Alex BissonAre you developing with TrackMate? If yes let's get in touch: I plan to make API breaking changes in the future version (v8, soonish) that will break existing detector and segmentation algorithms integration. Details on the forum: forum.image.sc/t/upcoming-b...
- Reposted by Alex BissonExcited to share our new paper in @cellreports.bsky.social that reshapes our understanding of chromosome organization's deep evolutionary roots! Our work dives into the origins of the machinery that structures our very genomes. 🔗: doi.org/10.1016/j.ce... #Genomics #Evolution #CellBiology #LECA
- Reposted by Alex BissonAlright fellas. Come one come all, #amateurbiology poster presentation at #asmicrobe on our first set of methylation screening results on Halococcus. Come ask about an exciting new finding I couldn't put on the poster! #archaeasky EEB 1147 🧪🧫🦠
- Reposted by Alex BissonFINALLY out in #Science Advances! 🎉 3 years of hard work, a fantastic team — and I’m proud to be first and co-corresponding author! It's about Plexin signaling driving collective cell migration & organ sculpting. Check out the videos 😀 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #DevBio #CellBio #Microscopy
- Reposted by Alex BissonSpecial kudos to 1rst authors @serenaflori.bsky.social @fmikus.bsky.social @eliottflaum.bsky.social, @embl.org EMCF facilities, @yschwab.bsky.social, @embltrec.bsky.social for the TREC samples & of course unique ExM gourous, collaborators and friends @dudinlab.bsky.social & @gautamdey.bsky.social
- Reposted by Alex BissonExcited to share the lab's 1rst preprint! Rapid high-res immunofluorescence is now possible in cultured & environmental diatoms thanks to 4-fold expansion microscopy. A step-change for comparative cell biology in one of the most important phytoplankton groups on the planet 🥳 tinyurl.com/m9s5su7s 1/2
- The best post-COVID meeting I've attended. Each talk was a "wait, what?" moment. It is beautiful to see how technology and the expansion of different subfields have pushed prokaryotic cell biology from a model organism-focused enterprise to one that is question- and discovery-driven.
- Reposted by Alex BissonFirst post on Bluesky! Our paper on previously uncultured Group-TE Glissomonad protists has been published. Video teaser below. #protists #ProtistsOnSky journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
- Reposted by Alex BissonXKCD’s take on archaea
- Reposted by Alex Bisson[This post could not be retrieved]
- What it has become a classic review published every ~5y, Polschroder (UPenn) and Schulze (RIT) summarize the Mol-Cell Bio technical advances for Haloferax volcanii , the "E. coli" of the archaeal models. Proud of our community progress given the genome was published only 15y ago! asm.social/2qE
- Reposted by Alex Bisson🧵 Excited to share our latest preprint! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... We developed a method to generate high-affinity binders against membrane proteins in their native-like environment! 🧪 #MembraneProteins #Nanobodies
- Reposted by Alex BissonPreprint: IntAct-U-ExM enables robust, isoform-specific expansion microscopy of actin networks in yeast and mammalian cells. A cool study led by @anubhavdhar.bsky.social in collaboration with Sudarshan and Deepak Nair. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Reposted by Alex BissonToday is the inaugural Duke Climate and Fungi symposium. Arturo Casadevall is the first keynote speaker. “Whenever the earth does poorly, the fungi do well” mgm.duke.edu/about-mgm/se...
- Reposted by Alex BissonAN IMMENSE WORLD: YOUNG READERS EDITION is out today! 🥳 I’m really grateful to AnnMarie Anderson for adapting it, Rebecca Mills for illustrating, Tom Russell for shepherding, and Rose Eveleth for reading the audiobook. (And it’s dedicated to Typo.) bookshop.org/p/books/an-i...
- Reposted by Alex BissonWe don’t protect science by automating it. We protect it by funding the people who dedicate their lives to it. #AI #ScienceMatters
- Reposted by Alex Bisson[This post could not be retrieved]
- well, that's what you get by trying to download all metadata from ScienceDirect. Now my IP is blocked there 🫣
- Well well well… On top of everything, we have to play the game “Will my $10k quote come out as $10k or $20k?”
- Reposted by Alex BissonExcited to share new research led by our very own @lingdong-shi.bsky.social showing that many archaeal 23S rRNAs are circularized in active ribosomes. Check out the preprint below.
- Happy to share our recent work on rRNA processing and conformation: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... Huge thanks to @ppenev.bsky.social @Amos Nissley @Dipti Nayak @Rohan Sachdeva @jhdcate.bsky.social @Jill Banfield @banfieldlab.bsky.social !!
