Critical points and transitions in embryo development
The Petridou group aims to understand how complexity arises during early embryo development by focusing on the emergence and function of collective tissue properties. To do so, we combine diverse disciplines including comparative embryology, biophysics, statistical mechanics, quantitative and synthetic biology.
The new review from our lab exploring the roles of tissue phase transitions in embryonic development is out! The article focuses not only on the function of these transitions in tissue deformation, but also highlights their non-canonical role in shaping tissue reorganisation and signalling.
This December, we celebrated the 5th anniversary of the lab, which started with the Laser Tag game (thanks to Karen for the organization!) and ended with a delicious Christmas dinner cooked by our group leader and a bad & good Secret Santa game. Thanks a lot to everyone for fun!
Fernanda just joined our lab as a new PhD student! She did her bachelor’s in Basic Biomedical Research at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and has worked on the cellular and biochemical mechanisms guiding brain regeneration in axolotls. In the lab, Fernanda will study how…
Camilla has successfully defended her PhD thesis titled “A closed feedback between tissue phase transitions and morphogen gradients drives patterning dynamics in the zebrafish embryo.” She studied how emergent collective properties regulate and interact with pattern formation in…
Our student Lena has successfully defended her PhD thesis titled “An optimum cell cycle heterogeneity times tissue fluidisation at the onset of zebrafish morphogenesis.” She studied the role of cell division synchrony in early embryogenesis. Lena will continue working in the Petridou…
The PhD work of our student Camilla is out on bioRxiv! Camilla has studied how emergent collective properties regulate and interact with pattern formation by tuning the length-scales and time-scales of morphogen signalling. Congratulations, Camilla!
Eric just joined our lab as a new PhD student. He studied at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), where he majored in Computer Science and Information Systems. As his interest in biology deepened, Eric worked on integrating single-cell RNA-seq data. In our group, he is interested in…
Our postdoctoral fellows Karen Soans and Jun-Ru Lee both qualified for the EIPOD fellowship this year! With this funding, Jun-Ru aims to understand the cellular programs underlying the diversity of early embryonic development across fish species. Karen will investigate the role of tissue compaction…
Adhesion-driven tissue rigidification triggers epithelial cell polarity”, is now on biorxiv!We investigate how the coupling of several control parameters used during a tissue phase transition impacts tissue organization at the morphological and molecular level. Congratulations to Laura and Cris!
This March, we went on an exciting joint lab retreat with the Hiiragi and the Salbreux group. In a villa on the Côte d’Azur, we presented our projects to each other, enjoyed amazing food and got collaborating!