Quantitative Developmental Biology

Development is the process by which the fertilised egg, a single cell, transforms into a fully functional multicellular organism. During this transformation, all basic cellular processes – from the cycle of each cell division to the formation of individual organs – need to be precisely coordinated in time and space. Our team is interested in how this is achieved. Our research is driven by the conviction that mathematical and physical concepts are indispensable for a deeper understanding of how the collective action of gene networks and environmental factors drives the emergence of biological shapes and patterns. Ultimately, we would like to reveal evolutionary conserved principles of patterning in metazoan development and expose novel mechanisms underlying developmental precision and robustness.