Research Interests
Understanding how a 3D tissue is built from the genetic blueprint is a key frontier in biology. In addition to some of the genes known to be important in specific aspects of morphogenesis, physical properties and constraints play a major role in building tissues. As geneticists and developmental cell biologists interested in morphogenesis, we aim to understand how the genetic inputs integrate with the mechanical properties of the cells and tissues to produce form.

We focus our research on two fundamental and conserved morphogenetic phenomena, axis extension and compartmental boundary formation, for which we have evidence of an integration between the function of genes and the action of mechanical forces in the developing tissues. We study these in a model organism, the Drosophila embryo, because this is one of the simplest (and cheapest) multicellular models that are genetically tractable. In addition, this embryo is very accessible to in vivo imaging, develops fast and is increasingly exploited as a paradigm for the mathematic modeling of morphogenesis.