How Do Unreliable Cells Build a Reliable Embryo? with Tony Tsai
Fishing for the Principles of Self-Organization in Development
Have you ever watched a marching band or a drone show? Hundreds of individuals coordinate their movements to create patterns and shapes far larger than themselves. Such performances require intricate planning and remarkably precise execution.
Now imagine making the challenge harder. What if some members of the marching band occasionally lose their way, cannot move properly, or fail to communicate with their neighbors? Could the group still produce the same beautiful pattern every time?
This is the remarkable engineering problem that embryos solve every day. Millions of cells must collectively build tissues with reproducible shapes and patterns, even though individual cells experience noisy signals, move unpredictably, and constantly exchange neighbors. Somehow, remarkably reliable structures emerge from surprisingly unreliable components.
How is such reliability possible?
In this talk, we will explore classic and modern ideas in Developmental Biology about how cells build an embryo. We will introduce classic paradigms in embryo development, and some new insights (including work from my lab) that refine our current view. We will discuss pros and cons of different strategies when collectives of individuals need to build structures larger than themselves.
This lecture will be recorded and made available for viewing after the event.