From embryos to stem cells: charting quantitative landscapes of mammalian development

Date

Mar 18, 2024

Time

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Speaker

Adriano Bolondi

Affiliation

Dept. of Genome Regulation, MPI for Molecular Genetics, Berlin

Language

en

Main Topic

Biologie

Host

Jesse Veenvliet

Description

Mammalian development is a highly orchestrated process where millions of cells move in concert to ensure the formation of diverse tissues and organs. In particular, during gastrulation and early organogenesis, a relatively homogenous group of pluripotent cells rapidly diversify to shape complex morphological domains with specialized functions. These intricate processes require multiple regulative layers that dynamically crosstalk to guarantee developmental robustness, including the interactions between genes, cells, and the extracellular environment. Despite foundational work in the past century, quantitative measurements of these dynamic interactions remain challenging, mainly because of the embryo inaccessibility in the maternal womb and the lack of adequate tools to decode its complexity. I will present novel stem cell-based and genomic approaches that we developed to make mammalian embryogenesis more accessible and tunable, including enhanced in vitro models, 3D spatial transcriptomic maps, and single-cell genetic lineage tracing technologies. This innovative toolkit allowed us to assess the role of the extracellular matrix in tissue morphogenesis, study the spatial organization of gene expression in mutant embryos, and chart complex developmental trajectories during critical windows of mammalian development.

Last modified: Mar 19, 2024, 7:38:49 AM