CELL Size & Growth seminars
Cell Size & Growth is a fortnightly online seminar series showcasing the latest research into cellular size, growth, scaling and biosynthesis. The seminars are hosted on zoom every other Tuesday at 8 am PST, 11 am EST, 4 pm GMT and 5 pm CET. We also host an associated slack channel for community discussion and a recording of each seminar is available for two weeks via our youtube channel. Past and upcoming talks are listed below.
Season 8: Jan-May 2025 | Season 7: Feb-June 2024 | Season 6: Feb-June 2023 | Season 5: Sep-Nov 2022 | Season 4: Feb-June 2022 | Season 3: Aug-Nov 2021 |Season 2: Feb-June 2021 | Season 1: June-Nov 2020
The next season will start in early 2026 – if you would like to present, please submit an abstract via the above link.
Season 9: Jan-May 2026
| 6th Jan. | Simon Gemble | Institute Curie, France | How non-canonical cell cycles affect nuclear architecture: just a matter of DNA content? |
| 6th Jan. | Evgeny Zatulovskiy | University of Cambridge, UK | Identifying the molecular determinants of nuclear-to-cell volume scaling |
| 20th Jan. | Neil Lin | UCLA, USA | Cell Geometry and Chromatin Regulation: How Morphological Heterogeneity Modulates H3K27me3 Levels in Epithelia |
| 20th Jan. | Anna Taubenberger | Technische Universität Dresden, Germany | Nuclear downsizing: Dynamic volume and cell-cycle control in emerging cancer spheroids |
| 3rd Feb. | Jette Lengefeld | Helsinki University and Karolinska Institutet | Size-scaling rewires the metabolism of hematopoietic stem cells |
| 3rd Feb. | Pau Formosa-Jordan | Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Germany | Cell size patterning in the Arabidopsis epidermis – the case of giant cells |
| 17th Feb. | Ben Larson | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York, USA | Regulated development of cannibalistic supergiant cells |
| 17th Feb. | Teemu Miettinen | Koch Institute, MIT, USA | Exploring the extremes of cell size and density regulation in marine phytoplankton |
| 3th March | Shyama Nandakumar | University of Pittsburgh, USA | Wired for Resilience: Ring canals in the Drosophila larval fat body buffer stress response |
| 3th March | Peter Lenart | Towbin lab, University of Bern, Switzerland | Coordinated Scaling of Germline Growth Ensures Reproductive Timing Across Environments |
| 17th March | Vicki Loscik | Boston College, USA | Wound-induced polyploidization: an adaptive healing strategy |
| 17th March | Keisuke Kuromiya | Stanford University, USA | TBC |
| 31st March | Andrew Leduc | Slavov Lab, Northeastern University, USA | Principles of protein abundance regulation across single cells in a mammalian tissue |
| 31st March | Anouk Olthof | University of Copenhagen, Denmark | RNA polymerase II abundance regulates transcriptional homeostasis |
| 14th April | Benedikt Mairhoermann | Schmoller lab, Helmholtz Munich, Germany | Fully automated cell cycle analysis on the species level of S. cerevisiae |
| 14th April | Yiqiao Zheng | Lew lab, MIT, USA | Cell size control in the multi-budding yeast Aureobasidium pullulans |
| 28th April | Fiona Watt | EMBL-Heidelberg, Germany | Role of cell volume in regulating epidermal differentiation |
| 28th April | Clemens Cabernard | University of Washington, USA | Cellular Asymmetry and Asymmetric Cell Division |
| 12th May | Hisao Moriya | Okayama University, Japan | Impact of maximal overexpression of a non-toxic protein on yeast cell physiology |
| 12th May | Xin Gao | Stanford University, USA | The proportional scaling of mRNA and ribosome concentrations controls eukaryotic cell growth |
Season 8: Jan-June 2025
| 7th Jan. | Michael Polymenis | Texas A&M University, USA | The activating phosphorylation of Cdk as a receiver of growth inputs |
| 7th Jan. | Xiaoyu Shi | UC Irvine, USA | Contacts between nuclear invaginations and nucleoli upregulate ribosome biogenesis |
| 21st Jan. | Alex Bisson | Brandeis University, USA | Size and shape control in archaeal tissues |
| 21st Jan. | Adam Larson | Stanford University, USA | Scaling up: Inflation-induced motility in a migrating dinoflagellate |
| 4th Feb. | Lendert Gelens | KU Leuven, Belgium | Nuclear size controls the cell cycle period in frog egg extract |
| 4th Feb. | Preethi Kunchala | NHLB / NIH, USA | Mitotic spindle plasticity in response to karyotype variation |
| 18th Feb. | Jacob Kim | Stanford University, USA | FKH1/2 dimer controls WHI5’s cell size-subscaling transcription |
| 18th Feb. | Billy Whyte | Francis Crick Institute, UK | Buffering cell size at mitosis against changes in Cyclin B expression |
| 4th March | Yong Hyun Song | New York Structural Biology Center and Flatiron Institute, USA | Clocks and Dominoes: Timing Mechanisms in Human Embryos |
| 4th March | Saransh Umale | UC San Diego, USA | The topology, shape and size of mitochondrial networks during the cell cycle in yeast |
| 18th March | Dong Shin (Chris) You | Stanford University, USA | Cell size increase leads to transcriptome remodelling |
| 18th March | Emile Magny | Stanford University, USA | Dietary input remodels intestinal size through mechano-osmotic modulation of cell extrusion |
| 1st April | Helena Cantwell | UC Berkeley, USA | Mechanisms of spindle morphology changes at the meiosis to mitosis transition |
| 1st April | Olga Afonso | University of Geneva, Switzerland | Cytoplasmic flow is a cell size sensor that scales anaphase |
| 15th April | Vanna Tran | Dumont Lab, UCSF, USA | Probing the mechanisms underlying the mammalian kinetochore’s structural integrity under force |
| 15th April | Preethi Kunchala | NHLB / NIH, USA | Mitotic spindle plasticity in response to karyotype variation |
| 29th April | Yohanns Bellaiche | Institut Curie, France | Scaling morphogenesis with size |
| 29th April | Miranda Hunter | Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, USA | Spatial regulation of melanoma invasion |
| 13th May | David Duran-Chaparro | NYU Langone Health, USA | Size and mesoscale crowding in aging: insights from genetically encoded nanoparticles |
| 13th May | Vamshi Gade | ETH Zurich, Switzerland | Polysomes and mRNA control the biophysical properties of the eukaryotic cytoplasm |
| 27th May | Matt Good | University of Pennsylvania, USA | Contribution of blastula cell size patterning to development |
| 27th May | Adrien Jacobo | CZ Biohub SF, USA | How do cells count? Self-organization in a regenerating organ |
| 10th June | Piyush Nanda | Harvard University, USA | Reciprocal repression between glycolysis and mitochondrial metabolism produces bistability in yeast |
| 10th June | Jens Januschke | University of Dundee, UK | TBC |
Season 7: Feb-June 2024
| 6th Feb. | Yihui Shen | University of Pennsylvania, USA | Proteome efficiency of cellular energy production |
| 6th Feb. | Easun Arunachalam | Harvard University, USA | Mitochondrial saturation and decoupled biogenesis underlie overflow metabolism |
| 20th Feb. | Xiao Liu | Heald lab, UC Berkely | Investigating effects of neuron size on neural development and function in Xenopus |
| 20th Feb. | Michael Fainzilber | Weizmann Institute of Science, Isreal | SINEs of Growth – Axon-Nucleus Signaling in Neuronal Growth Control |
| 5th March | Yuping Chen | Stanford University, USA | Viscosity-dependent control of protein synthesis and degradation |
| 5th March | Markus Basan | Harvard University, USA | Mechano-transduction via membrane potential and growth control |
| 19th March | Samarpan Maiti | University of Geneva, Switzerland | Mammalian cells adapt to chronic stress by increasing the size |
| 19th March | Audrey Gash | University of Wisconsin-Madison | Resource allocation balancing growth versus defense during acute stress in Saccharomyces cerevisiae |
| 2nd April | Avilash Singh Yadav | Roeder lab, UC Cornell, USA | Growth directions and stiffness across cell layers determine whether tissues stay smooth or buckle |
| 2nd April | Dominique Bergmann | Stanford University, USA | Size-linked cell fate decisions in plant organs. |
| 16th April | Mathew Bloomfield | Cimini lab, Virginia Tech, USA | Cell and nuclear size scaling after whole genome doubling determines the fitness of tetraploid cancer cells |
| 16th April | Doug Millay | University of Cincinnati, USA | The relationship between gene copy numbers and cell size in mammalian syncytial cells |
| 30th April | Vanessa Barone | Stanford University, USA | Cell size and cell fate in echinoderm embryos |
| 30th April | Madhav Mani | Northwestern University, USA | On how cells coordinate divisions, size, and shape to produce embryonic morphogenesis |
| 14th May | Ian Hatton | McGill University, Canada | Large scale patterns in cell biology: implications for growth and division |
| 14th May | Liam Holt | NYU, USA | It can be hard to work in small crowded spaces |
| 28th May | Ana Garoña | Instituto Gulbenkian, Portugal | Experimentally Evolving Cell Miniaturization in Budding Yeast. |
| 28th May | Gabriel Neurohr | ETH Zurich, Switzerland | A Direct Link Couples Cell Size to DNA Content |
Season 6: Feb-June 2023
| 28th Feb | Richard Poole | UCL, UK | Control of successive unequal cell divisions by neural cell fate regulators determines embryonic neuroblast cell size |
| 28th Feb | Margarete Diaz Cuadros | Harvard University, USA | Metabolic regulation of developmental rate in mouse and human cells |
| 14th Mar | Ian Jones (Bakal Lab) | ICR, UK | Cell growth dilutes YAP/TAZ influencing its subcellular distribution and phenotypic heterogeneity |
| 14th Mar | Sandro Santagata | Harvard University, USA | Temporal and spatial topography of cell proliferation in cancer |
| 28th Mar | Srivastava Nishit (Piel Lab) | Institut Curie, France | Density homeostasis and mass-volume coupling in proliferating mammalian cells |
| 28th Mar | Arohan Subramanya | University of Pittsburgh, USA | Cell volume rescue via crowding-Induced phase separation |
| 11th April | Alex Lessenger (Feldman Lab) | Stanford University, USA | Somatic polyploidy promotes size scaling and biosynthesis in the C. elegans intestine |
| 11th April | Zuzana Storchová | TUK, Germany | Scaling of cellular proteome with chromosome numbers |
| 25th April | Sujit Datta | Princeton University, USA | Growth and form of microbial colonies in 3D |
| 25th April | Haochen Fu (Jun lab) | UCSD, USA | What Triggers the Bacterial Cell Cycle: Protein Concentration or Number? Number! |
| 9th May | Madeline Keenen (Gladfelter lab) | UNC Chapel Hill, USA | Multifunctionality in a tissue sized placenta cell |
| 9th May | Jochen Rink | MPI for Multidisciplinary Sciences, Germany | Planarian flatworms as a model system for metabolic scaling |
| 23rd May | Jarno Mäkelä | University of Helsinki, Finland | Genome concentration drives bacterial growth through modulation of ribosome activity |
| 23rd May | Ariel Amir | The Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel | Correlations and causation in the bacterial cell cycle |
| 6th June | Shuyuan Zhang | Stanford, USA | The mechanism regulating Rb protein concentration through the cell division cycle |
| 6th June | Alison Lloyd | UCL, UK | The “setting” of cell size in the adult nervous system |
| 20th June | Ludovico Calabrese (Cosentino- lagomarsino Lab) | IFOM, Italy | How total mRNA influences cell growth through free ribosomes |
| 20th June | Martí Aldea | IBMB, Spain | Cell size, transcriptomic balance and optimal growth in budding yeast |
Season 5: Sep-Nov 2022
| 6th Sep | Coral Zhou (Heald lab) | UC Berkeley, USA | Mechanisms of mitotic chromosome scaling in Xenopus |
| 6th Sep | Jordan Raff | University of Oxford, UK | How do centrioles and centrosomes grow to the right size? |
| 20th Sep | Clovis Basier (Nurse lab) | The Francis Crick Institute, UK | Variability in global cellular amino acid incorporation (protein synthesis?) and its genetic modulation |
| 20th Sep | Wei-Hsiang (Jacobs-Wagner lab) | Stanford, USA | Connecting single-cell ATP dynamics to overflow metabolism, cell growth and the cell cycle in Escherichia coli |
| 4th Oct | Griffin Chure (Cremer lab) | Stanford, USA | Hail to the Flux: How An Optimal Allocation of Resources Dictates Microbial Growth |
| 4th Oct | Sander Tans | AMOLF, Netherlands | Bacterial coexistence driven by motility and spatial competition |
| 18th Oct | Matthew Swaffer (Skotheim lab) | Stanford, USA | RNA polymerase II dynamics and mRNA stability feedback determine mRNA scaling with cell size |
| 18th Oct | Scott Berry | UNSW, Australia | Quantitative imaging approaches to understand mRNA concentration homeostasis in human cells |
| 1st Nov | Sandhya Manohar (Neurohr lab) | ETH Zürich, Switzerland | Too big not to fail: How cell cycle progression defects and impaired DNA damage signaling drive enlarged cells into senescence |
| 1st Nov | Evgeny Zatulovskiy (Skotheim lab) | Stanford, USA | Sorting out the interconnections between cell size, growth rate and senescence in mammalian cells |
| 15th Nov | James Pelletier | Centro Nacional de Biotecnología, Spain | Genetics and mechanics of cell division in a genomically minimal cell |
| 15th Nov | Kate Adamala | University of Minnesota, USA | Scaling life beyond the natural boundaries |
| 29th Nov | Clotilde Cadart (Heald lab) | UC Berkeley, USA | Cell size and ploidy: from cells to the physiology of vertebrate embryos |
| 29th Nov | Ethan Levien | Dartmouth College, USA | Single-cell growth dynamics within and across cell-cycles: what can we learn from noise? |
Season 4: Feb-June 2022
| 29th Mar | Xili Liu (Kirschner lab) | Harvard University, USA | Beyond G1/S regulation: how cell size homeostasis is tightly controlled throughout the cell cycle? |
| 29th Mar | Teemu Miettinen (Manalis lab) | MIT, USA | Single-cell monitoring of dry mass and dry mass density reveals exocytosis of cellular dry contents in mitosis |
| 12th Apr | John Devany (Gardel Lab) | University of Chicago, USA | Tissue confinement controls cell size and growth in epithelia |
| 12th Apr | Ran Kafri | University of Toronto, Canada | Cell size-dependent signal transduction links cell size homeostasis with mammalian longevity, mTORC1 and CDK4 |
| 26th Apr | Thomas Julou | University of Basel, Switzerland | Growth rate controls the sensitivity of gene regulatory circuits |
| 26th Apr | Terry Hwa | UCSD, USA | Bacterial strategy to sense and control the rate of cell growth |
| 10th May | Paolo Maiuri | IFOM, Italy | Tension biased nuclear import sets nuclear-cytoplasmic volumetric coupling |
| 10th May | Mary Baylies | Memorial Sloan Kettering, USA | Nuclei, Position, Activity: Decoding Cell Size Regulation in Muscle Development and Disease |
| 24th May | Naama Brenner | Israel Institute of Technology, Israel | Sloppy control in bacterial growth and division |
| 24th May | KC Huang | Stanford University, USA | Cell size control during environmental fluctuations |
| 7th June | Kristi Miller (Moseley Lab) | Dartmouth College, USA | Strategies for geometry-based cell size control in fission yeast |
| 7th June | Paul François | McGill University, Canada | Adders, sizers, timers: simulated evolution of cell size control |
| 21st June | Adrian Saurin | University of Dundee, UK | Metabolic regulation of developmental rate in mouse and human cells |
| 21st June | Alexis Barr & Tony Ly | MRC LMS & University of Dundee, UK | Aberrant growth during G1 induces chronic osmotic stress and a biphasic p21 response to promote cell cycle withdrawal |
Season 3: Aug-Nov 2021
| 24th Aug | Sean Sun | John Hopkins, USA | Mechanical regulation of cell size and growth |
| 24th Aug | Kristin Knouse | MIT, USA | Delivering insights into organ homeostasis and regeneration through in vivo genome-wide screens |
| 7th Sep | Adrienne Roeder | Cornell University, USA | Role of ribosomes and translation in orchestrating growth patterns in Arabidopsis flowers |
| 7th Sep | Robert Sablowski | John Innes Centre, UK | Regulation of plant stem cell size using DNA contents as a scale |
| 21st Sep | Tobias Kletter (Reber Lab) | Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany | Spindle scaling in cellular differentiation |
| 21st Sep | Jan Brugués | MPI-CBG, Germany | Spindle scaling is governed by cell boundary regulation of microtubule nucleation |
| 5th Oct | Mike Lanz (Skotheim Lab) | Stanford University, USA | How cell size shapes the eukaryotic proteome |
| 5th Oct | Mikael Bjorklund | Zhejiang University, China | Size-scaling promotes senescence-like changes in proteome and organelle content |
| 19th Oct | Chantal Roubinet (Baum Lab) | UCL, UK | Asymmetric nuclear division in neural stem cells generates sibling nuclei that differ in size, envelope composition, and chromatin organization |
| 19th Oct | Matthew Piel | Institut Curie, France | Density homeostasis in cultured mammalian cells |
| 2nd Nov | Rob de Bruin | UCL, UK | Can cell size and growth stop cancer? |
| 2nd Nov | Renata Basto | Institut Curie, France | When double brings trouble |
| 16th Nov | Ulrich Gerland | Technical University of Munich, Germany | The effect of cell growth on cell death in bacteria |
| 16th Nov | Severin Schink, (Basan Lab) | Harvard, USA | Mechanistic insights on death of bacteria in starvation |
| 30th Nov | Nick Rhind | University of Massachusetts, USA | Cell size regulation by size-dependent expression of mitotic activators |
| 30th Nov | Martin Howard | John Innes Centre, UK | Dissecting sizer-based cell size control and the role of cell-to-cell variability |
Season 2: Jan-May 2021
| 19th Jan | Xili Lui (Kirschner lab) | Harvard University, USA | Computationally Enhanced Quantitative Phase Microscopy Reveals Autonomous Oscillations in Mammalian Cell Growth |
| 19th Jan | Min Wu | MIT, USA | Delivering insights into organ homeostasis and regeneration through in vivo genome-wide screens |
| 2nd Feb | Joël Lemiere (Chang Lab) | UCSF, USA | The role of colloid osmotic pressure in nuclear size control in S. pombe |
| 2nd Feb | Orna Cohen-Fix | NIDDK, NIH, USA | The mystery of nuclear size regulation |
| 16th Feb | Jonas Cremer | Stanford University, USA | The bacterial swimming machinery – coordinated with cell size and growth |
| 16th Feb | Naama Barkai | Weizmann Institute, Israel | The search for fundamental limits on cell growth and cell size |
| 2nd Mar | Marta Shahbazi | MRC LBM, Cambridge, UK | Balancing cell fate, tissue shape and embryo size |
| 2nd Mar | Theo Knijnenburg | Allen Institute, USA | A systematic organelle size scaling analysis of 15 cellular structures across 135,000 human induced pluripotent stem cells |
| 16th Mar | Dianyi Liu (Umen lab) | Danforth Plant Science Center, USA | Elucidating the mitotic sizer in the multiple fission alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii |
| 16th Mar | Johan Elf | Uppsala University, Sweden | Coordinating replication initiation with cell growth in E. coli |
| 30th Mar | Amy Ikui | CUYN Brooklyn College, USA | Cell wall integrity pathway in cell size control |
| 30th Mar | Liam Holt | NYU, USA | TORC1: crushing it in the nucleus |
| 13th Apr | Shane McInally (Kondev & Goode labs) | Brandeis University, USA | Decelerated growth scales actin filament length to the linear dimensions of the cell |
| 13th Apr | Kurt Schmoller | Institute of Functional Epigenetics, Helmholtz, Germany | Coordination of mitochondria homeostasis with cell size |
| 27th Apr | Yuping Chen (Ferrell lab) | Stanford University, USA | Diffusivity may affect cell cycle and translation |
| 27th Apr | Petra Levin | Washington University in St. Louis, USA | Thresholds in cell division and in cell size homeostasis |
| 11th May | David Sabatini | MIT, USA | Regulation of metabolism and food choice by mTORC1 |
Season 1: June-Nov 2020
| 30th June | Amanda Amodeo | Dartmouth College, USA | Excess histone3 is a Chk1 inhibitor that controls embryonic cell cycle progression |
| 30th June | Chris Bakal | Institute of Cancer Research, UK | A systems look at networks regulating size |
| 14th July | Teemu Miettinen | MIT, USA | Mass measurements during lymphocytic leukemia cell polyploidization decouple cell cycle and cell size dependent growth |
| 14th July | Christine Jacobs-Wagner | Stanford University, USA | Bacterial cell size, scaling laws and the physicochemical properties of the cell |
| 28th July | Shicong (Mimi) Xie (Skotheim Lab) | Stanford University, USA | G1 sizer coordinates cell size and cell cycle in mammalian stem cells |
| 28th July | Sven van Teeffelen | Institut Pasteur, France | Coordination of cell volume with biomass growth in bacteria |
| 11th Aug | Benjamin Towbin | University of Bern, Switzerland | Coupling of growth and development ensures body size homeostasis of C. elegans |
| 11th Aug | Suckjoon Jun | UCSD, USA | Homeostatic principles of bacterial cell size control: from phenomenology to mechanistic origin |
| 25th Aug | Simone Reber | Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany | How Complexity Arises from Molecular Interactions |
| 25th Aug | Angelika Amon | MIT, USA | Why stem cells are small |
| 8th Sep | Kora-Lee Claude (Schmoller Lab) | Institute of Functional Epigenetics, Helmholtz, Germany | Transcription regulates histone homeostasis |
| 8th Sep | Bruce Futcher | Stony Brook University, USA | Size-dependent expression of cell cycle regulators may explain size control in yeast |
| 22nd Sep | Marco Cosentino-Lagomarsino | IFOM Foundation / University of Milan, Italy | Three hypotheses on the E. coli cell cycle, by model falsification |
| 22nd Sep | Britta Eickholt | Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany | Control of axon growth and branching |
| 6th Oct | Seungeun Oh (Kirschner Lab) | Harvard University, USA | Measuring protein and lipid mass in single cells in tissue environment |
| 6th Oct | Fred Chang | UCSF, USA | Regulation of cell density in the fission yeast cell cycle |
| 20th Oct | Hui Chen (Good Lab) | University of Pennsylvania, USA | Spatiotemporal Patterning of Zygotic Genome Activation |
| 20th Oct | Shangqin Guo | Yale University, USA | Cell size bias in converting somatic cells into pluripotency |
| 3rd Nov | Bree Aldridge | Tufts University, USA | Heterogeneity in environment, growth, and cell size in Mycobacterium tuberculosis |
| 3rd Nov | Nic Tapon | The Francis Crick Institute, UK | Seeing is bewildering: imaging growth during fly abdomen development |
Swaffer lab 