The last Theory of Living Matter group seminar for the 2024/25 academic year takes place on 9 July.
Speaker: Dr Zena Hadjivasiliou - University College London and the Francis Crick Institute
Date: Wednesday 9 July 2025
Time: 4:00pm
Abstract:
"During development local differences in morphogen concentrations are translated into signalling to drive cell fate decisions. Although the mechanisms through which morphogens are transported in tissues have received much attention, the role that tissue material properties hold in morphogen transport is not well understood. In this talk, I will first present a theoretical framework where we couple epithelial mechanics and architecture to morphogen trafficking. We use this framework to explore how morphogen properties scale with cell size and shape, and to show that feedback between tissue architecture and morphogen signalling leads to unexpected emergent properties. In the second part of the talk, I will present a combination of experimental and theoretical work where we show that transitions in tissue-scale physical properties are coupled to morphogen dynamics during early zebrafish development. Our findings show that the spatiotemporal dynamics of morphogen transport are actively regulated by cell and tissue architecture in vivo. We propose that feedback loops between morphogen signalling and tissue organisation lock patterning and morphogenesis in a closed feedback loop that ensures that their dynamics are kept in sync."
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