John Wallingford, PhD

University of Texas at Austin

Body Sculpting:  How the embryo constructs itself

The fascinating thing about embryos is that they construct themselves.  Indeed, it is the behavior of the individual cells within that directs dictates the construction of our tissues and organs, and defects in these behaviors are a key cause of human birth defects, which kill more than twice as many children as pediatric cancer.  Thus, understanding the cell biology of developing embryos is a crucial challenge in biology.  For the last two decades, our lab has used in vivo imaging, biomechanics, and proteomics to understand the collective cell behaviors that elongate the body axis in vertebrate embryos.  In this talk, I’ll discuss our recent work illuminating the nexus between tissue-specific developmental signaling systems that govern cell movements and the ubiquitous cell biological machinery that executes them.  The talk will focus on the interplay of Planar Cell Polarity signaling, actomyosin contraction, and cadherin-based cell-cell adhesion.