My main research interest is the formation of the 3D architecture of internal organs during embryonic development. I am especially fascinated by the general biological question of:

How the dynamic behavior of individual cells results in the final shape of the organ and guides cell differentiation

Currently my group also focuses on the related question:

How cell differentiation and cellular dynamics are coordinated between different cell lineages (epithelial, endothelial and neuronal) during organogenesis

In order to address these questions my group studies the embryonic pancreas. Our research models include transgenic mice and 3D growth of various cell lines. We employ novel high-resolution live imaging methods, and am currently developing new deep-learning based methods for quantitative analysis of 4D bio-imaging data together with my collaborators.

Keywords:

Developmental biology

Molecular Biology

Pancreas

Organogenesis

Tubulogenesis

Cell Signaling

Cell differentiation

Methods:

Microscopy

Confocal microscopy

Live imaging

Transgenic mouse models (fluorescent reporters)

BAC recombineering

Immunofluorescence

Histology

Protein and mRNA expression

Machine learning based image analysis