Date Nov 6, 2024, 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm Location Thomas Laboratory 003 Audience Free and open to the university community and the public. Speakers Sean Megason Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Systems Biology Harvard University Details Event Description Abstract: How do cells programed by tiny DNA molecules self-organize to create the diverse shapes and patterns of tissue that make up life, what Darwin called “endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful?”. We believe that Nature has developed a recipe book of algorithms, mechanistic strategies for precisely programing tissue pattern and shape. These algorithms are implemented by systems at molecular, cellular, and mechanical levels with control architecture that makes them goal-directed and tunable. Our lab uses systems biology in zebrafish to determine the real control systems that orchestrate embryonic development. We use computational modeling to build models of how cellular automata can interact to build patterns and shapes. We use perturbation approaches to test our models in real life. Our goal is to elucidate algorithms underlying growth and form. I will discuss recent work looking at how morphogen patterning systems can be robust in the neural tube, and how the growth of different tissues in the main body axis can be coordinated. Sponsor Department of Molecular Biology Contact Eszter Posfai, Department of Molecular Biology Event Category Butler Seminar Series