Paul MATSUDAIRA
Founding Deputy Director and Professor, Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore
Research Program
Leader, Mechanotransduction in Tissues
Affiliations
Emeritus Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore
Emeritus Professor, Centre for BioImaging Sciences, Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore
WANG Liyue
PhD Student, Class of August 2025, Yan Jie Group
She is Becoming: Curiosity, Comparison and the Making of a Scientist
February 11th celebrates The International Day of Women and Girls in Science to promote full, equal access and participation in STEM fields. MBI talks to two of our PhD students about their journey in becoming a scientist as women.
How Structural Imbalance Drives Inflammatory Signaling in Senescent Cells
In a study published in Molecular Biology of the Cell led by Celestine Ho at the Mechanobiology Institute, NUS, researchers discover that HIF-1α-activation in SASP is a defining feature of the SASP induced by diverse stressors, acting independently of micronuclei generation and cGAS/STING activation.
Paul Matsudaira
Emeritus Professor
Research Areas
Mechanobiology of cells and tissues on viscoelastic surfaces, nanoscale dynamics, biomaging sciences.
Research Interests
The Matsudaira Lab studies the role of mechanics in epithelial tissue migration and remodeling during development and disease. The organization and migration of epithelial tissues are sensitive to the underlying substratum, especially on visco-elastic substrates. This range of stiffness defines the environment of most basement membranes, cell-cell interactions, and early developmental processes. On the one hand, the lab is interested in the mechanical signatures of the development of chirality, convergence, and extension during the early steps in morphogenesis of the Zebrafish embryo. Other studies are focused on the role of substrate viscoelasticity in tissue remodeling during disease and its regulation by cell-matrix and cell-cell signaling pathways. In order to study complex, multi-scale dynamics the lab develops and applies novel imaging methods such as in situ TEM and strain light-sheet microscopy.
Biography
Formerly a biology and bioengineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Paul Matsudaira has studied the cytoskeleton since graduating from college. He was the EM technician of Tom Schroeder where he helped investigate the role of microfilaments in the contractile ring. As a graduate student of Dave Burgess he identified the structure and function of the intestine brush border cytoskeleton. Following postdoctoral research on the assembly of actin bundles at the MPI Biophysical Chemistry with Klaus Weber and the MRC LMB with Alan Weeds, Paul started his academic career at the Whitehead Institute and MIT where his lab studied biophysics of actin and other polymer protein bundles, mechanics of polymers and single cells motility, and developed microanalytical methods. In 2009, he moved to Singapore to establish the Centre for BioImaging Sciences, head the Department of Biological Sciences, and help found the Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore.
Education
PhD in Biological Sciences from Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire
Selected Publications (5 of 177)
- Zheng J, Han SP, Chiu YJ, Yip AK, Boichat N, Pauli AR, Zhu S, Matsudaira P. 2017 Substrate viscoelasticity induces coalescence of epithelial monolayers via subcellular redistribution of vinculin. Biophys J. 113:1585-98.
- Loh D, Sen S, Bosman M, Tan SF, Zhong J, Nijhuis C, Kral P, Matsudaira P, Mirsaidov U. 2016 Multi-step nucleation of nanocrystals in aqueous solution. Nat. Chem 9:77-82.
- Ai Kia Yip, Keng-Hwee Chiam and Paul Matsudaira. Traction stress analysis and modeling reveal that amoeboid migration in confined spaces is accompanied by expansive forces and requires the structural integrity of the membrane–cortex interactions. Integrative Biology, 2015, DOI: 10.1039/ C4IB00245H. First published online 27 May 2015
- Bhattacharya D, Singh V R, Zhi C, Peter T C, Matsudaira P, Barbastathis G. 2012. Three dimensional HiLo-based structured illumination for a Digital Scanned Laser Sheet Microscopy (DSLM) in thick tissue imaging. Optics Express 20(25):27337-27347.
- Mirsaidov UM, Zheng H, Bhattacharya D, Casana Y, Matsudaira P. 2012. Imaging protein structure in water at 2.7 nm resolution by TEM. Biophys J. 102:L15-7.
Recent Publications
- Zhu S, Loo YT, Veerapathiran S, Loo TYJ, Tran BN, Teh C, Zhong J, Matsudaira P, Saunders TE, and Wohland T. Receptor binding and tortuosity explain morphogen local-to-global diffusion coefficient transition. Biophys J 2024;. [PMID: 39049492]
- Tavakoli S, Zhu S, and Matsudaira P. Cell clusters containing intestinal stem cells line, the zebrafish intestine intervillus pocket. iScience 2022; 25(5):104280. [PMID: 35586068]
- Bhattacharya D, Zhong J, Tavakoli S, Kabla A, and Matsudaira P. Strain maps characterize the symmetry of convergence and extension patterns during zebrafish gastrulation. Sci Rep 2021; 11(1):19357. [PMID: 34588480]
- Wu H, Ng DTW, Cheong I, and Matsudaira P. The degradation-promoting roles of deubiquitinases Ubp6 and Ubp3 in cytosolic and ER protein quality control. PLoS ONE 2020; 15(5):e0232755. [PMID: 32401766]
- Chan SN, Prasad R, and Matsudaira P. Genetic Selection Based on a Ste6*C-HA-Ura3 Substrate Identifies New Cytosolic Quality Control Alleles in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. G3 (Bethesda) 2020; 10(6):1879-1891. [PMID: 32299823]
- Matsudaira PT, and Verma CS. Editorial. Prog. Biophys. Mol. Biol. 2019;. [PMID: 30951764]
- Wadduwage DN, Singh VR, Choi H, Yaqoob Z, Heemskerk H, Matsudaira P, and So PTC. Near-common-path interferometer for imaging Fourier-transform spectroscopy in wide-field microscopy. Optica 2017; 4(5):546-556. [PMID: 29392168]
- Zheng JY, Han SP, Chiu Y, Yip AK, Boichat N, Zhu SW, Zhong J, and Matsudaira P. Epithelial Monolayers Coalesce on a Viscoelastic Substrate through Redistribution of Vinculin. Biophys. J. 2017;. [PMID: 28844472]
- Zheng JY, Tan HL, Matsudaira PT, and Choo A. Excess reactive oxygen species production mediates monoclonal antibody-induced human embryonic stem cell death via oncosis. Cell Death Differ. 2017;. [PMID: 28106884]
- . https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28007915
MBI Lab Members
Kottpalli Vidhipriya
PhD Student, Class of August 2024, Young Group
Goh Jia Lin Kellisa
PhD Student, Class of August 2024, Li Group
Cao Gefei
PhD Student, Class of August 2024, Hirashima Group, Chan Group
Seeking Research Assistant in the research group of Prof. Alexander Bershadsky
We are seeking to recruit a Research Assistant to work in the research group of Prof. Alexander Bershadsky at the Mechanobiology Institute, NUS.
Ivo Johannes Hendrikus Marie de Vos
Research Fellow, Li Group
Hann Shen Ng
Research Fellow, Holle Group
Congratulations to Kim Whye and Jake for their recent achievements
Congrats to Kim Whye for being selected to give an oral presentation and for receiving a travel award for the upcoming Imaging Mouse Development Workshop! Congrats also to Jake for being awarded the prestigious EMBL CPP grant to engage in collaboration with the Prevedel lab!
Joe invited to present at various conferences and research institutes in Japan
Joe was invited to present at the International Symposium on Mechanical control of biological self-organization and the IUPAB Congress 2024 in Kyoto, as well as at WPI-PRIMe in Osaka. It was also a great pleasure to meet up with Katsuhiko Hayashi, an inspiring figure in ovaroids studies!
Push and pull: Joe shares his two cents on current approaches to measuring mechanics in Nature
Great to see developmental mechanics getting highlighted!
Shambhavi Dikshit
Research Fellow, Toyama Group
Nishanth Venugopal Menon
Senior Research Fellow, Lim Group
Prof Rong Li elected President of the American Society for Cell Biology for 2026
MBI Director Professor Rong Li, has been elected by members of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) to serve as President of the Society in 2026. She will serve as President-Elect on the ASCB Executive Committee beginning 1 January 2025, before starting her term as President on 1 January 2026.
