Heilbronn Institute Sponsored Seminar -- Dr Marine Fontaine: Dynamical landscapes and neural tube patterning [IN PERSON]
| Dates: | 3 February 2025 |
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| Times: | 14:00 - 15:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | Department of Mathematics |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Current University students |
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| Speaker: | Marine Fontaine |
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Join us for this Heilbronn Institute Sponsored Seminar by Dr Marine Fontaine (Warwick) as part of the North West Seminar Series in Mathematical Biology and Data Sciences. More details about the joint series can be found here https://northwestseminars.great-site.net/ .
The talk will be hosted in person in room 2.61 of the Simon Building. For those who cannot attend in person the talk will also be streamed via zoom, please contact carl.whitfield@manchester.ac.uk or igor.chernyavsky@manchester.ac.uk for the zoom link, or sign up to the mailing list.
Title: Dynamical landscapes and neural tube patterning
Abstract: The specification of discrete cell states in developing tissues is driven by biological signals that force the cells to modify their molecular identity and transition to a new state. This process is well illustrated by Waddington’s landscape metaphor, which portrays a cell on its developmental pathway as a ball rolling down a landscape of branching valleys. The local minima of the landscape represent “attractor states" whose existence depends on the signals that continuously reshape the landscape making it highly dynamical. We present a systematic approach, grounded in dynamical systems and bifurcation theory, to construct dynamical landscape models from high dimensional transcriptomic data. The approach uses computational methods to identify attractor states and the pathways connecting them thereby revealing the complex topology of the cells decision-making landscapes. We apply this framework to in vitro data from the developing neural tube, where distinct types of neural progenitors are specified in response to pulses of the signal Sonic Hedgehog. The resulting quantitative model successfully replicates cells responses when subjected to signal perturbations and can be used to predict in vitro protocols for generating specific cell types.
To subscribe to the mailing list for this event series, please send an e-mail with the phrase “subscribe math-lifesci-seminar” in the message body to listserv@listserv.manchester.ac.uk
Speaker
Marine Fontaine
Role: Research Fellow
Organisation: University of Warwick
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
2.61
Simon Building
Manchester
