Speaker
Claire Dessalles
Description
Morphogenesis, the process by which tissues acquire their shape, hinges on a finely orchestrated collective motion of cells autonomously choreographing themselves to a well-defined final position.
The goal of my project is to understand how geometry and topology controls the spontaneous organization of cells that drives morphogenesis, i.e. the growth from a 3D surface to tissues with complex shapes. To investigate this phenomenon, I grow cells on the surface of deformable capsules and monitor the nematic field, cellular flows, and tissue growth. We show that the collective motion of cells is controlled by the nematic order, and topological defects act as morphogenic organizers via active stresses.
Authors
Claire Dessalles
Dr
Tzer Han Tan
(Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics)
Prof.
Aurélien Roux
(University of Geneva)