EMBO Young Investigator
MPI für molekulare Zellbiologie und Genetik, Dresden | Germany
YIP 2016
Some planarian flatworms have the amazing ability to regenerate their entire body from tiny tissue fragments. We want to understand how they manage to do that. First, we study how self-organizing signaling networks, in interplay with pluripotent stem cells, govern the shape and regeneration of the planarian body. Second, we collect, culture and characterize non-regenerating planarian species to explore how and why regenerative abilities change in evolution.
Keywords: Wnt signaling / planaria / morphogenesis / comparative genomics & transcriptomics / evolution of regeneration
Subject area(s): Cell & Tissue Architecture | Development | Evolution & Ecology