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Project

A high-throughput quantitative study of the early embryonic cell cycle

A complex network of interacting proteins coordinates the cell cycle. This same network can lead to a wide range of behaviors depending on how protein activities change in space and time. How to relate such collective dynamics to cell behavior remains largely unanswered. Using early frog and zebrafish embryos, we aim to gain new insights into how their cell cycle remodels from the first divisions, where all cells toggle between interphase and mitosis with clock-like precision, to the more complex and irregular somatic cell cycle transitions. A high-throughput pipeline will be developed, using custom-made microfluidic devices and time-lapse fluorescence microscopy, to manipulate and image cell cycle processes in vitro and in vivo with high spatiotemporal resolution. These experiments will interact synergistically with in-depth theoretical modeling and it will teach us how the dynamical behavior of cells depends on a combination of their underlying molecular network, their environment and developmental cues.
Date:1 Oct 2018 →  30 Sep 2022
Keywords:microfluidics, nonlinear spatiotemporal dynamics, computational modeling, cell cycle, Xenopus laevis embryo
Disciplines:Other biological sciences