A new preprint on the PhD project of Lena is out on bioRxiv! Lena’s project focused on how cellular timing heterogeneity coincides with and regulates a tissue rigidity transition at the onset of zebrafish morphogenesis. She shows that cell cycle length heterogeneity emerges from the stochastic differences in resource allocation, which is amplified by a deterministic hyperbolic growth of the cell cycle length. Embryos are tuned at an optimal range of cellular timing heterogeneity, which occurs timely and robustly, showing that biological stochasticity drives phase transitions in living matter!

The attached acrylic painting is an interpretation of Lena’s project done by the artist Ayelen Valko, titled “Forces of Fate.”