About Us
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We use interdisciplinary approaches, including tools from cell and developmental biology, biochemistry and bioengineering, to tackle fundamental biomedical questions. In particular, we are interested in how cells regulate their dimensions and the physiological consequences of cell size dysregulation. We are also interested in how embryos count and measure to regulate key events in early development.
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Spatiotemporal pattern of large-scale zygotic transcription in blastula embryos.
Spindle assembly in cytoplasm filled cell-like compartments. Scale bar 20 microns.
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Research INTERESTS
SIZE SCALING
GENOME ACTIVATION
MEMBRANELESS
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We are interested in how cell and organelle size are regulated and coupled to one another.
We are interested in processes that regulate the timing of large-scale zygotic transcription in blastula embryos.
We are interested in how proteins self-organize into micron length scale compartments inside the cell and how these compartments regulate cellular processes.
We investigate how embryos count time and measure cell size during the rapid divisions that follow fertilization. Additionally we are studying how collections of cells self-organize and pattern the cleavage stage embryo.
We build synthetic cells to investigate how cell geometry and volume regulate intracellular assembly, signaling and gene expression. By combining cytoplasmic extracts and microfluidic encapsulation technologies we are able to create tunable cell-size compartments that can mimic aspects of the eukaryotic cell cycle in vitro.
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