Endocytic crosstalk & flow of mechanical perturbations
Local crosstalk of clathrin-mediated and caveolar endocytosis, how mechanical perturbations flow in cells, and the role of tension-sensitive caveolae and ezrin in mechanoprotection.
Cell Biophysics Lab · IISER Kolkata
Understanding membrane homeostasis
The theme of the lab is to understand how cells achieve a homeostatic mechanical state of their membrane during various processes and perturbations. We study how effective membrane tension is interlinked with endocytosis, receptor clustering, cell–cell fusion, migration and cellular mechanoprotection.
What we ask
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Research themes
Membrane fluctuations & receptor clustering
Can membrane fluctuations control protein clustering? From TNFR1 signalling to receptors that initiate endocytosis.
Myoblast fusion
How membrane tension, Myomerger clusters, Piezo and lipid asymmetry work together when myoblasts fuse.
Collective cell migration
New rules of motility and the role of membrane tension in cells migrating together.
Recent papers
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Latest publications
Science Advances · 2026
Intra-cluster receptor density (IRD): a molecular switch for TNFR1 clusters' signaling
Jana, Roy, Das, … Sinha B, Sinha DK — with the DKS lab, IACS.
Cell Reports Physical Science · 2026Higher actin contractility and cargo-loaded clathrin pits create midplane-peaked apico-basal tension profiles in HeLa cells
Ghosh, Majhi, Kundu, Banerjee, Sinha.
Molecular Biology of the Cell · 2026Noncanonical regulation of the plasma membrane copper transporter CTR1 through modulation of membrane mechanical properties
Chatterjee, Kar, … Sengupta, Sinha, Gupta.
Research · 2026Spatio-temporal regulation of ligand trafficking and TLR9 activation by PIEZO1 in human plasmacytoid dendritic cells
Pattanayak, Raychaudhuri, … Sinha, Ganguly.
Lab news
What's new
Papers, awards, arrivals, defences and travels — the life of the lab since 2017.
2026
Tanmoy leaves for his new venture — postdoc at Rutgers University. All the best :)
Ria joins as a postdoc. Welcome Ria!!
With the DKS lab — now online in Science Advances 🥳 on TNFR1 clustering, an ongoing collaboration. This work shows how intra-cluster receptor density (IRD) acts as a switch for TNFR1 signaling. Great job team and congratulations Jibitesh! Read here.
Great news from Titas — our first BSMS student in the lab — recipient of the 2026 Fellows-to-Faculty Award by the Simons Foundation. Read here 🥳
Shrijeet joins us for PhD. Welcome!!
Upasana bioRxives her work on Myomerger: “Size-dependent membrane remodelling at Myomerger clusters during myoblast fusion”. This work shows how the size of Myomerger clusters decides whether they bulge the membrane out to help fusion pores open, or indent it and get cleared by endocytosis. Read here.
Adrika and Trisha join us for their 5th-year BSMS project. Welcome!!
Ananya and Tanmoy get PhD degrees :) Tanvi, Kaustav and Arkadeep graduate with BSMS; Shrijit finishes MSc dissertation. Congratulations to all!
Tanmoy finishes PhD — Dr. Ghosh. Congratulations!
Local membrane remodelling by CPGs — Upasana's contribution to our collaboration with the DG lab on PIEZO1 mechanosensing in human plasmacytoid dendritic cells — now in Research 🥳 This work shows how large CpG-A aggregates stretch the membrane as they are taken up, activating PIEZO1 to keep them in early endosomes and drive interferon-α production. Read here.
Great talks at FIMB 2026 in our Department — including Tanmoy's :)
Ghosh et al. out in Cell Reports Physical Science. This work shows that adherent cells carry an apico-basal tension gradient, peaking at the mid-plane, shaped by actin contractility and cargo-loaded clathrin pits. Read here.
…and Ananya finishes PhD — Dr. Biswas. Congratulations!
Happy New Year! Shilajit joins our lab for PhD. Welcome!!
2025
With the AG lab — Subhendu's work now in MBoC 🥳 This work shows that copper makes CTR1 cluster on the membrane, raising local tension and curving the membrane to trigger its own clathrin-mediated endocytosis. Read here.
Purnashree, Jibitesh, Kaustav, Upasana, Husain and BS at FCS 2025, SINP Kolkata.
Ghosh et al. accepted at Cell Reports Physical Science 🥳
BS talks at the 65th ICBL meeting in Innsbruck, Austria; Tanmoy talks at Biomembrane Days in Berlin, Germany. Lots of feedback received.
Arkadeep, Kaustav and Tanvi join us for their 5th-year BSMS project. Welcome!!
We contribute to “Spatio-temporal regulation of ligand trafficking and TLR9 activation involves PIEZO1 mechanosensing in human plasmacytoid dendritic cells” by Dipyaman Ganguly's lab. Great work by Upasana. Read on bioRxiv.
New bioRxiv — Ananya's work: “Inhibiting ezrin triggers formin-mediated actin remodelling reducing cellular mechano-protection”. This work shows that blocking ezrin shifts actin from the cortex to formin-built stress fibres, leaving cells more likely to rupture under osmotic shock. Husain and Jibitesh have contributed too. We are intrigued and continue digging! Read here.
Alekhya was at Conforce 2025! Kudos.
Husain officially joins the lab. Cheers! Looking forward to some great work.
Purnashree finishes a flow cytometry certificate course. Good job.
Jibitesh and BS happy to be part of Rahul Das lab's work. This work shows that high extracellular potassium suppresses T cell receptor signalling by slowing ZAP-70 recruitment — now published in JBC. Read here.
Subhendu's work in collaboration with Arnab Gupta's lab now on bioRxiv: “Non-canonical regulation of the plasma membrane copper transporter CTR1 through modulation of membrane mechanical properties”. Read here.
“Actin contractility and endocytosis create apico-basal tension gradient in HeLa cells” — on bioRxiv now. Good job Tanmoy and team. Old collaborative work started with Ayan Banerjee's lab. Read here.
2024
Upasana awarded the Best Poster Award at the 15th National Workshop on Fluorescence and Raman Spectroscopy & 17th International Conference on Optics within Life Sciences (16–21 November 2024), IIT Bombay. Congratulations!!
Biswas (Parijat) et al. out in eLife. Great work on cell volume regulation by Deepak Sinha's lab at IACS; we contributed experiments by Jibitesh. Congrats! This work shows that TNFR1–NFκB signalling drives cell volume recovery after hypertonic shrinkage, and that severe macromolecular crowding switches it off. Read here.
Welcome Rohan, Diana and Anandita — our new 5th-year BSMS students. And we have Kaustav and Tanvi — 4th-year BSMS students exploring the lab.
Our interest in TNFR1 clustering is growing. More contribution by Jibitesh to work from the DKS lab (IACS), now on bioRxiv. Read here.
Multiple meetings. Tanmoy was at Conforce 2024. Ananya was at Biomembranes 2024 (IISc, Bangalore).
Baishali visits us from McGill University to work on her IRM data with Alekhya, and Sharmistha (Kalyani University) wakes up the stretchers with Upasana — we had C2C12 growing on PDMS again! Great time with both.
Congratulations Dr. Tithi Mandal!! Well defended.
Congratulations Tanmoy and Tithi — our work with Sreekanth and Dhruba, “Estimate of entropy production rate can spatiotemporally resolve the active nature of cell flickering”, accepted in Physical Review Research. This work estimates entropy production from IRM flickering data, telling active membranes apart from ATP-depleted ones down to the ~1 µm scale.
Congratulations Upasana, Tithi and Madhura — review “The Plasma Membrane and Mechanoregulation in Cells” accepted in ACS Omega. The review covers how the plasma membrane senses, buffers and regulates mechanical stress in cells. Read here.
DBT–Abberior Advanced STED workshop @ IISER Kolkata. Research talks and hands-on sessions — very enriching.
Welcome Purnashree! Our newest lab member — PhD scholar.
2023
SERB promises support!
Tithi's paper is out. This work shows that during de-adhesion, cells restore membrane tension by forming clathrin/AP2 pits, with cholesterol-dependent pits taking over when ATP is depleted. Read here.
The last day of November brings GOOD news finally. Tithi, Arikta and Tanmoy's paper accepted at CMLS. Balle balle!! Congratulations to all authors!!
Congratulations to our master's student Animesh Sanjay Sinha for bagging a supercool job at TCS!!
Absolutely great discussions with our CEFIPRA collaborator, Prof. Christophe Lamaze, during his stay on campus.
The Piezo work with Dipyaman Ganguly's lab. This work shows that Piezo1 senses local tension at the leading edge of migrating T cells and recruits the integrin LFA-1 there. Read here.
Congratulations to now Dr. Suvam Mukherjee for defending his thesis.
Congratulations to Suvam, Jibitesh, Madhav and Team JDS. This work shows that Connexin 43 drives coherent, collective-like migration that does not depend on Golgi reorientation. Check out our collaborative work here.
Tithi off to Venice for an EMBO Workshop — When biology of endocytosis meets physics.
Madhura leaves to start her postdoctoral life at UCL.
Madhura turned into Dr. Madhura Chakraborty. Kudos!!
Animesh, Deepak and Uday started their stint in the lab. We welcome the three musketeers ;)
Tanmoy visits Institut Curie for collaborative work with the Lamaze lab. Thanks CEFIPRA.
Preprint by Tithi, Arikta, Tanmoy et al.: “Formation of clathrin-pits and ATP-independent cholesterol-dependent tubules initiates mechano-regulation on de-adhesion”. Read here.
Tanmoy trapped in the workshop section of the Indian Biophysical Society meeting 2023 at NCBS. Tithi joined the conference. Fascinating world of biophysics re-unveiled. We return with big plans.
All lab members presented posters @ FIMB 2023.
2022
Upasana and Subhendu present posters @ SCB 2022.
Alekhya visited the Das Lab @ TIFR Hyderabad for traction force microscopy training.
Tanmoy was @ the Statistical Biological Physics Workshop, ICTS Bangalore.
Congratulations Madhura! Now online: Chakraborty M, Sivan A, Biswas A and Sinha B (2022) Early tension regulation coupled to surface myomerger is necessary for the primary fusion of C2C12 myoblasts. Front. Physiol. 13:976715. This work shows that myoblasts must transiently lower membrane tension, coupled to surface myomerger, before they can fuse. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2022.976715
Upasana, Tithi and BS @ Biomembranes, IISc. Heady mix of computational, in vitro and in vivo work.
Our Bio Open cover highlighted by Biomedical Picture of the Day (bpod.mrc.ac.uk).
Alekhya gets cell sheets from zebrafish and confirms they too have “non-sticky” followers!!
Great participation at BAW 2022 by Jibitesh, Upasana, Tithi and Madhura. Upasana delivers a talk, others present posters — and Madhura gets 2nd prize for her poster on the Bio Open work :)
Muhamad Shameem starts working on cell sheets with Alekhya. Welcome Shameem!
Tanmoy works with the SPIE student chapter for “SPARKLE-2022” to celebrate the International Day of Light with ~80–90 school students. BS talks.
Avec Sreekanth and Dhruba: measuring entropy generated from membrane fluctuations!! Good job Tanmoy, with great help from Tithi. Read the manuscript.
We contribute a bit — an important bit — to the story of macromolecular crowding and volume regulation in cells from the DKS lab, IACS. Jibitesh shows how tension is affected on blocking TNFR1 signalling. Check here.
~16 students from the Physiology Department, West Bengal State University, visit the lab — a day of TIRF and optical trap demonstrations and short talks by all research scholars.
Gangeya BPS Student Chapter steps in to celebrate BIOPHYSICS WEEK :)
Bio Open publishes our first work on collective cell migration AND we get the cover :) This work shows that “non-sticky” followers in keratocyte cell sheets change the tension profile of leader cells and how it couples to their speed. Congratulations Madhura, Baishali, Nanditha!! Read here.
2021
Our first postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Subhendu Chatterjee. Welcome!
Three new lab members! Alekhya, Jibitesh and Upasana. Also Nanditha and Aritra start their MS thesis work.
CONGRATULATIONS to Dr. Rinku Kumar for defending and earning his PhD. External: Prof. Shamik Sen, IIT Bombay. All the best!
New review with Arikta and Rinku published in the Journal of the Indian Institute of Science. The review discusses how the actin cortex helps cells maintain membrane homeostasis.
New lab member: Tanmoy — embarking on the path to PhD… welcome!
2020
New preprint: Heterogenous adhesion of follower cells affects tension profile and velocity of leader cells in primary keratocyte collective cell migration. Read on bioRxiv.
CONGRATULATIONS Dr. Arikta Biswas — thesis well defended. External: Prof. Thomas Pucadyil.
Congratulations to Madhura for a nice FlashTalk, and Tithi (and Arikta) for the Soft Matter Poster Prize @ International Symposium on Cell Surface Macromolecules, NCL & IISER Pune (17–21 Feb 2020).
Madhavi joins the lab for a last additional stint for her Masters project.
Happy New Year, and welcome to new lab member Ananya Biswas.
2017 – 2019
Support promised by SERB.
Madhura presents a poster at FCS 2019.
Athil, Jeebak and Lakshmi join the lab for their Masters project.
All the best Shruti! Also Baishali and Shibil. All 14MS students from the lab have now stepped out into different exciting areas. We learnt with you. Do well.
Now online: Cell spread area and traction forces determine myosin-II-based cortex thickness regulation. This work shows that how far a cell spreads and how hard it pulls on its substrate set the thickness of its myosin-II–regulated actin cortex. doi.org/10.1016/j.bbamcr.2019.07.011
All the best Arikta… pre-submission day!!!
CONGRATULATIONS Rinku — manuscript on cortex thickness regulation accepted @ BBA Molecular Cell Research. Congrats to Sajjita too :)
BIOSCOPY 2019: we are very busy!
IBS 2019 starts. IISER Kolkata is the host. We are busy!
Congratulations Arikta — manuscript on cholesterol depletion accepted @ Biophysical Journal. This work shows that removing cholesterol raises membrane tension and its variability, making membranes more prone to rupture. Congrats to all — Purba, Sanchari, Titas :)
Tithi joins the lab.
Moving to the new lab.
Work of Arikta, Purba, Sanchari and Titas on cell rupturing and the role of cholesterol in membrane tension now on bioRxiv. Read here.
Rinku successfully performs traction stress microscopy.
New member joins our lab — welcome Raju Sarkar. Madhura joins the IISER PhD program :)
Preprint of the cortex-thickness work. Read here.
Lab poster “Study of Mechanics of Plasma Membrane and Actin Cytoskeleton” (Arikta Biswas*, Rinku Kumar*, Kishan, Bidisha Sinha) gets 2nd prize at IISF 2017.
Check out the fluctuation paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2017.08.041 This work maps membrane fluctuations across cells and shows that they are actively regulated, with transient heterogeneities.
Baishali succeeds in getting a colony of keratocytes from American cichlids!
Arikta's (and Amal's) paper accepted for publication in Biophysical Journal — congrats!
Vikash gets the Best Masters' Thesis Award! Congrats!