The ISMB held their biennial meeting as part of IOP's SynSci 2026 Conference in Glasgow
I attended some of the talks & will add Sketchnotes, where I am allowed to by the speaker, over the next weeks.
Due to the hugely attractive alternative parallel sessions and my singular nature, I am sorry not to have been able to attend more.
Monday 13.7.2026 Plenary Session
Ardem Patapoutian, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Scripps Research
May the Force be with you! Piezo channels in mechanosensory biology
Claire Walsh, University College London
The human organ atlas as a resource for open biomedical research
Patricia Osseweijer, Delft University of Technology
Tuesday 14.7.2026 am Advanced Tools for Multiscale Mechanobiology
Chwee Teck Lim, NUS, Mechanobiology Institute, National, University of Singapore
Decoding the Mechanoresilience of Circulating Tumor Cells (link not yet live, contacted & prepped)
Decoding the Mechanoresilience of Circulating Tumor Cells (link not yet live, contacted & prepped)
Giuliano Scarcelli, University of Maryland, USA
Brillouin microscopy for cell and tissue biomechanics
Brillouin microscopy for cell and tissue biomechanics
Quantification of cell-ECM 3D forces at the fiber level
Miguel Dias Castilho, Eindhoven University Of Technology / Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, Nl
Engineered mechanical heterogeneity through light-sheet grayscale volumetric bioprinting enables spatial and temporal control of cellular fate
Andrew Holle, NUS, Singapore
High-Throughput Confined Migration Reveals a Molecular Signature of Physical Confinement
Marco Fritzsche, Rosalind Franklin Institute and Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, University of Oxford, GB
Tomaso Zambelli
Electrical and Mechanical Characterization of Mono- and Bilayers of hiPSC Cardiomyocytes
Alex Koch, University Of Manchester, GB
Tuesday 14.7.2026 pm Nuclear Mechanobiology 1
Tobias Zech, University of Liverpool, GB
Nuclear force feedback as rheostat for actomyosin tension control
(link not live, will be revealed much later)
(link not live, will be revealed much later)
Hawa Racine Thiam, Stanford University, USA
Carmelo Ferrai, UMG, Göttingen, De
Cristina Cortesi, Politecnico Di Milano, It
Disentangling microenvironmental dimensionality and architecture in stem cell mechanobiology
Andra C. Dumitru, UC Louvain, Be
Tuesday 14.7.2026 pm Immunomechanobiology 2
Adrien Hallou, University of Oxford
Spatial mechano-transcriptomics: mapping mechanical forces and gene expression in tissues at single-cell resolution (prepped and contacted)
Remi Peyronnet, Institute for Experimental Cardiovascular Medicine
Piezo1 links Fibroblasts and Inflammation in Atrial Fibrillation
Marketa Kubankova, FAU, Erlangen, De
What we learned from 6000 patient blood samples measured with deformability cytometry: age, biomarkers, and disease mechanotypes
Wednesday 15.7.2026 am Cell Mechanics Across Length Scales
Victoria Sanz-Moreno, The Institute of Cancer Research, London, GB
Physico-chemical signals driving metastatic behaviour (contacted, sorry no)
Matthieu Piel, Institute Curie, Paris, Fr
Vito Conte, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), Nl
Using ECM viscoelasticity to regulate cardiomyocytes’ beating dynamics in vitro.
laria Tonazzini, Nanoscience Institute, National Research Council (CNR), Pisa, It
Neuronal mechanosensing in a neurodevelopmental disorder’ model
Alba Diz-Muñoz, EMBL, Heidelberg, De
Wednesday 15.7.2026 pm Mechanobiology of Development and Tissue Engineering 1
Pere Roca-Cusachs, Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC)
Mechanical regulation of nucleocytoplasmic transport
Rashmi Priya, The Francis Crick Institute
Morphogenesis in chaos: Building a beating heart
Steph Höhn, University of Cambrige, DATMP
Spatially controlled tissue properties foster epithelial invagination
Juan Manuel Gomez, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) - Heidelberg
Macromolecular order controls tissue-specific mechanical state transitions during gastrulation.
Marine Luciano, University Of Mons
Mechanical response of epithelial tissues to curvature
Wednesday 15.7.2026 pm Mechanobiology of Ageing 2 & 3
Joe Swift, The University of Manchester
Teodora Piskova, RWTH Aachen University
Age-associated mechanical reinforcement impairs phagocytosis in the retinal pigment epithelium
Samuele Giannoni
Adipose-derived stem cells from Alzheimer’s disease patients exhibit altered mechanotransduction associated with disease progression
Timo Zadegh Nazari-Shafti, Baylor College of Medicine
Mechanoprotective Strategies to Rejuvenate Ageing Endothelium
Thursday 16.7.2026 am ECM Mechanobiology in Physiology and Disease 1
Valerie Weaver
University of California
Forcing inflammation to drive tumor initiation and progression
Jeremy Teo
New York University Abu Dhabi
Mechanical Barriers to Immunity: Collagen Fibril Alignment as a Determinant of Immunological Suppression and Exhaustion in the Tumor Microenvironment
Raquel Ruiz-Mateos Brea
Universidad de Sevilla
STIFFNESS-DRIVEN TRACTION FORCES PROMOTE COLLAGEN ALIGNMENT AND DIRECTIONAL MIGRATION IN 3D BREAST CANCER MODELS
Jonah Voigt
Cell Adhesion and Extracellular Matrix Assembly on Viscoelastic Substrates
Haguy Wolfenson, Technion - Israel Institute Of Technology
Michael Sheetz, a tribute &
Inhibiting Enzyme-Mediated Fibronectin Fibrillogenesis – A Novel Route For Fibrosis Inhibition
Thursday 16.7.2026 am In vivo Mechanobiology 2 & Flash talks
Chris Chen, The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, Biomedical Engineering at Boston University
Stephen Holtz, Harvard Medical School
Establishing a dynamic, subcellular understanding of mechanosensation using Drosophila antennal mechanosensors.
Maria Elena Fernandez Sanchez, Institut Curie
Mechanical activation of colon stem cells via magnetic and ultrasound stimulation
Flash talks
Niklas Gampl, Max-planck-zentrum Für Physik Und Medizin
Mechanical regulation of neuroepithelial development
Mrs Catherine LEON
EFS Grand-Est, UMR_S1255 INSERM
YAP/TAZ deficiency in megakaryocytes impairs actomyosin function and increases platelet formation
You-Hsuan Liu
University Of Cambridge
In vivo nuclear envelope adaptation during cell migration across confining embryonic tissue environments
Oriol Nos Aguila
Impetux Optics SL
Subcellular viscoelasticity and dynamic force generation quantified with optical tweezers
Yuhong Jiang
University of Manchester
Assessing the differential impact of RAS mutations on tissue mechanics and tumour formation