Senior Group Leader
Animal development is one of the most complex processes encountered in biology. In early embryonic development of vertebrates and higher invertebrates, a single cell is transformed into a fully functioning organism comprising tens of thousands to trillions of cells that build tissues and organs able to perform the most challenging tasks.
My lab’s research is motivated by our curiosity to understand development and the concurrent emergence of function at this system-wide level. Towards this end, we are developing live-imaging technology to enable fundamentally new measurements in biology. We create complete end-to-end solutions, including the computational infrastructure required for image processing and data analysis, to make sure that our technology can be used effectively for biological discoveries. My lab is currently applying these methods to quantitatively study development and emergence of function in the early nervous system of fruit fly, zebrafish and mouse. These technologies will be applicable and particularly useful to explore biological problems in the 4D Cellular Physiology field.