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Pere Roca-Cusachs

Group leader

Physical forces regulate cell division

Researchers at IBEC have discovered that cell division in epithelial tissues is regulated by mechanical forces.

This revelation could potentially open avenues to a greater understanding of the uncontrolled proliferation of cancer cells in tumors, and their possible regulation by means of physical forces.

Publishing in the June edition of Nature Cell Biology, the research group of ICREA professor Xavier Trepat, group leader at IBEC and associate professor at the University of Barcelona (UB), describe how the mechanical state of epithelial tissues – the continuous sheets of cells that cover all the exposed surfaces of the body – is related to the cell cycle and cell division.

IBEC research on cover of Trends

Alberto Elosegui-Artola, Xavier Trepat and Pere Roca-Cusachs’ paper in Trends in Cell Biology has made the cover of the latest issue of the Cell-family journal.

In ‘Control of Mechanotransduction by Molecular Clutch Dynamics’, the IBEC researchers review how cell dynamics and mechanotransduction are driven by molecular clutch dynamics.
The molecular clutch hypothesis suggests a mechanism of coupling between integrins and actin during cell migration, whereby a series of bonds that dynamically engage and disengage link cells to their microenvironment.

IBEC’s first EMBO Young Investigator

Pere RocaIBEC junior group leader and UB assistant professor Pere Roca-Cusachs has been accepted into the prestigious EMBO Young Investigator Programme.

EMBO, the European Molecular Biology Organization, chooses some of the best young group leaders in Europe through a highly competitive annual selection. Pere presented his research plan for the next five years to an international panel in Heidelberg at the beginning of October.

“I’m really delighted to have been accepted,” says Pere, who is the first ever IBEC researcher to be selected for the programme, and the only one from Spain this year.