Better together: establishment of supracellular polarity in migrating cell collectives

How do cells in embryos coordinate their behaviors and why does development usually favor collective cell movements? Advantages include robust and reproducible behaviors when navigating complex embryonic environments.

Coordination of multi-tissue morphogenesis.

Development of complex structures coordinates between the multiple tissues that form those structures. I use the growth of the Ciona robusta tail to understand how forces from different tissues are coordinated to drive morphogenesis.

Transcriptiome maturation during development

In order to differentiate cell must acquire the competence to make the required fate choices. Through profiling of the cardiopharyngeal lineage in Ciona I have identified candidate genes that help the heart and muscle take the next steps in development.