In the headlines

A minimal in vitro experiment isolates the mechanical motors of cellular intercalation and offers promising possibilities for diagnostic support

The MATERIALS 2026 international conference will be held from November 16 to 20, 2026, in Grenoble (Isère). This event is organized by the French Materials Federation (FFM), which brings together 26 scientific and technical associations involved in materials. It is part of the MATERIALS series of conferences, which have been held every four years since 2002 and have established themselves as the must-attend French-language event for all academic and industrial players in the world of materials.

The school explores how living and synthetic active matter communicate, coordinate, and make decisions through physical, chemical and informational cues. Moving beyond contact and hydrodynamic interactions, the school focuses on chemical communication, quorum sensing, and informed active matter—three paradigms linking physics, chemistry, and biology. Emphasis is directed on how chemical signaling shapes collective motion, how cell populations self-organize through density-dependent feedback, and how agents can harness environmental information to optimize their behavior. By bridging active matter physics with biological regulation, the school aims to reveal new principles of organization in complex, living-like systems.

How do you choose the right technique for fast optical sectioning, and what are the critical parameters that influence its performance? This is the focus of a recent article by researchers at LIPhy and ENS Paris.

This is the goal of several CNRS teams, notably Alexander Farutin’s team at LIPhy.

This is the focus of the ANR ITALLIX project, led by Marie Plazanet, a CNRS researcher at LIPhy, which aims to study the migration of metal ions between two liquid phases at the molecular level.

Liquids are supposed to flow, not fold. Yet microscopic oil droplets can reliably morph into lenticular hexagrams ( six-pointed stars) while staying liquid inside.

Guillemin Raymond presented the Matosthèque during the third environmental transition in research day organized by the CNRS.

Electrostatic screening in ionic liquids -the ability of ions to neutralize a charge- is actually short-range, contrary to previous observations of abnormally extended interactions.

The laboratory was present at the technology and innovation festival, which took place on February 4 and 5, 2026, at Alpexpo Grenoble.

The use of fluorescent biosensors capable of optically reporting biochemical signals is hindered by the lack of simple methods to quantitatively measure and analyze their signal. The previously developed QuanTI-FRET method has been simplified and is now available in user-friendly, open-source software.

Large-format panels illustrate some of the research activities carried out at the laboratory.