The goal of our group is to bring together an interdisciplinary team of scientists to focus on the research of a particular complex system – development of the vertebrate limb. We aim to understand it both at the level of gene regulatory networks, and at the level of the physical interactions between cells and tissues. To achieve this the group includes embryologists, computer scientists, imaging specialists and engineers. We thus aim to capture the whole process of understanding, from novel approaches for data-capture (live time-lapse OPT imaging) to finite-element simulations of the growing 3D structure and computer models of the gene networks responsible for pattern formation across the organ. This combination of approaches is allowing us to address the following questions: What kinds of cellular movements are responsible for creating to correct 3D shape of the limb? How are these behaviours coordinated? How is the correct spatial pattern of gene expression controlled? What topology of gene regulatory network may be responsible for this complex phenomenon?
Links:

http://genex.hgu.mrc.ac.uk/OPT
http://www.bioptonics.com

http://www.molimg.gr

http://www.hfsp.org/awardees/abstractRG.php?id=8&t=P&y=2004