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SUMMARY:Probing the molecular and cellular basis of developmental morphoge
 nesis - Tassos Pavlopoulos\, Max Planck Institute at Dresden
DTSTART:20130612T120000Z
DTEND:20130612T130000Z
UID:TALK45266@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Matt Benton
DESCRIPTION:My research focuses on the molecular and cellular basis of tis
 sue morphogenesis during animal development and evolution. This is a funda
 mental but also challenging problem to address that requires studies at mu
 ltiple levels of biological organization: from gene expression and functio
 n\, to dynamic cell behaviors\, to tissue and organ morphogenesis. To brid
 ge these scales\, we have been carrying out complementary studies on diffe
 rent arthropod species that satisfy a number of appealing biological and t
 echnical requirements. In this talk\, I will focus on recent advances made
  in studying appendage morphogenesis in the crustacean amphipod Parhyale h
 awaiensis. Parhyale embryos are direct developers exhibiting a striking mo
 rphological gradation along the anterior-posterior body axis. Each embryo 
 develops a variety of specialized appendages that differ in size\, shape a
 nd pattern\, offering exceptional material to study the cellular and molec
 ular basis of tissue morphogenesis. Using multi-view Selective Plane Illum
 ination Microscopy\, we have been able to image developing appendages at s
 ingle-cell-resolution over 5 days of embryogenesis\, from early specificat
 ion until late differentiation stages. In parallel\, we have been developi
 ng image-processing platforms that allow navigation through these massive 
 data sets (in the terabyte range)\, as well as cell tracking and cell line
 age reconstruction from multiple views of the same embryo. Using this comp
 rehensive pipeline\, we have now all necessary tools to systematically ana
 lyze all sorts of cell behaviors underlying the morphological diversificat
 ion of Parhyale serially homologous appendages. Finally\, we are making th
 e link between developmental gene activity and morphogenetic cell behavior
 s by combining live imaging with functional genetic approaches for visuali
 zation and manipulation of gene expression in vivo.
LOCATION:Main Lecture Theatre\, Department of Zoology
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