What we do
We study how cells in a developing tissue acquire the right identity, in the right place, at the right time, and in the right numbers.
We investigate how gene regulation, signalling and cell behaviour direct tissue formation, using the vertebrate spinal cord as our main model system. We combine developmental biology, genomics, bioengineering and computational modelling to understand how specific cell types are generated, how functional tissues are assembled, and how system-level properties such as pattern, tempo, precision and morphogenesis emerge from molecular mechanisms.
The goal is to explain neural tube formation across scales, from molecular mechanism to cell behaviour to tissue organisation. This is one of the grand challenges of systems developmental biology: reverse-engineering a developing tissue in enough detail to predict and control its formation. We now test that understanding by building. We design regulatory DNA to specification, produce morphogen gradients with light, and grow spinal cord tissue from stem cells.
Why it matters
Answering these questions links genotype to phenotype and explains how structure relates to function in the nervous system. It also lays the foundations needed to engineer tissues, model disease and advance regenerative medicine.
Five connected questions, one tissue.
Groups of transcription factors, wired into a network, decide which type of cell each neural progenitor becomes. We are mapping the network and asking how gradients of signals such as Sonic Hedgehog control it over time.
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Cis-regulatory elements are the stretches of DNA that determine when and where genes switch on and off. We are working out the rules they follow and testing those rules by building new elements from scratch.
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Development runs to a schedule and the schedule differs between species. We study what sets the pace, how the time of neuronal generation affects cell type and how lineage determines what each progenitor can make.
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We build spinal cord tissue outside the embryo, from stem cells, then control the signals it receives. Reconstructing a tissue from its parts is the strongest test of whether we understand how embryos form.
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Embryos are dynamical systems. We build models that explain how cells choose fates, and methods that recover those dynamics from the data single-cell experiments produce.
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We are always interested in hearing from prospective PhD students and postdocs, whatever your background: wet lab, computational, physical or somewhere in between.
