Understanding the relationship between genotypes and complex phenotypes using multiscale numerical models

Datum

21.08.2025

Zeit

15:00 - 16:30

Sprecher

Dr. Roland Zimm

Zugehörigkeit

Ecole Normale Superieure Lyon (France) and Dublin City University (Ireland)

Serie

TUD ZIH Kolloquium

Sprache

en

Hauptthema

Biologie

Andere Themen

Biologie, Informatik, Willkommen

Host

Hartmut Mix

Beschreibung

Across the tree of life, one of the hallmarks of biology is the abundance of complex and diverse forms that emerge from the interplay of generative factors and evolve. Understanding these dynamical processes, connecting genotype and phenotypes, is a core objective of developmental biology, but mechanistic insight has often been limited to selected model species. In order to compare developmental mechanisms between different organisms, and test hypotheses about their evolution, multi-scale numeric modelling has proven a versatile tool. This is because this approach presents an intermediate level of epistemological complexity between abstract genotype-phenotype maps and detailed models of specific processes, allowing to study general patterns without losing biological realism.

Here, I present two different modelling frameworks that are used to examine the relationship between generative information and phenotypic complexity through developmental dynamics. First, I use a model of shark tooth development to investigate how different combinations of genetic and biomechanical parameters lead to dental diversity and how complex shapes emerge within the high-dimensional in silico morphospace. This analysis reveals general rules about variation and the transition between phenotypes of different morphological complexity that go beyond the specific organ system. Second, I introduce a general cell-based model of 3D tissue morphogenesis and organogenesis combining cell behaviours, biomechanics and morphogenetic networks. This model allows to correlate GRN and shape complexity in a systems-independent manner, revealing properties that may have shaped both micro- and macro-evolution and the way developmental mechanisms themselves tend to arrange and evolve, providing quantitative evidence for long-standing hypotheses about the origins of complex animal body plans.

Roland Zimm is an ex-fellow of the group of Andreas Deutsch/ Lutz Brusch at the ZIH, where he did his Diploma/Msc on modelling pancreas cell lineage conversion dynamics by bottom-up and top-down processes. Thereafter, he went to Helsinki, where he was a doctoral student with Isaac Salazar-Ciudad at the University of Helsinki, studying morphogenesis in complex systems and also used models to answer eco-evo-devo questions in turtle scute pattern formation. After a short stay at the Konrad Lorenz Institute close to Vienna (an institute dedicated to advancing theory in Biology and adjacent disciplines), he moved on to work with Nicolas Goudemand in Lyon at the Institute of Functional Genomics, where his projects – partly supported by a DFG fellowship - were centered around understanding the diversity of shark teeth and dentitions, using modelling and morphometrics approaches. Currently, he starts a postdoc in the Origins-of-Life lab with Sean Jordan at Dublin City University.

ONLINE BBB: Link ZIH-Colloquia (https://bbb.tu-dresden.de/b/har-oa6-col-lmy)

Links

• Webseite
• Termindetails auf den Webseiten der TU Dresden (https://tu-dresden.de)

Letztmalig verändert: 02.08.2025, 07:37:54