ICTP Colloquium on Friday 16 Dec by Eric F Wieschaus, Princeton University and Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine

[Infopoint]

Dear All,

ICTP is pleased to announce that the next ICTP Colloquium on "Gene and
Cell Mechanics during Embryonic Development" by Eric F Wieschaus,
Princeton University, and Nobel Prize 1995 for Physiology and Medicine,
will take place on Friday 16 December at 17:00 hrs in the Budinich
Lecture Hall, Leonardo Building, ICTP.

Abstract: During development, cells in an embryo face two major tasks.
First, they must express distinct combinations of genes appropriate for
specific cell fates such as muscle and skin. Once such patterns of gene
expression are established, cells must change their shape and position
to match those cell fates. These morphological transformations are
remarkable for their speed and precision, but also for their incredible
beauty. The associated cell-shape changes depend on local patterns of
gene activity, but how such patterns are converted into the physical
properties controlling shape and motility is a major unanswered question
in biology. In my talk, I will describe my lab’s attempts to address
these questions using the Drosophila embryo as a model system. A
surprising feature of these morphological changes is that although they
are driven by gene activities in individual cells, they can often be
understood as global changes in the distribution of physical forces
within the entire tissue. These findings open up a new perspective on
the relationship between cells and organismal morphology.

Biosketch: In the late 1970s, Eric Wieschaus and Christiane
Nüsslein-Volhard carried out large-scale mutagenesis screens to identify
genes controlling embryonic development in Drosophila. In contrast to
previous genetic analyses, these screens were designed for genomic
saturation, i. e.; identifying key components in all pathways governing
morphology, patterning and differentiation. These experiments
established a basic “tool box” of maternal factors and signaling
pathways that operate in the Drosophila embryo and are conserved with
remarkable fidelity in all multicellular organisms including humans.
Mutations in the associated genes account for a significant fraction of
inherited birth defects in humans and play a major role in cancer.
Wieschaus and collaborators went on to elucidate basic features of the
Wnt pathway. More recent work focuses on the mechanics of cell shape
change and movement during gastrulation and on biophysical measurements
of gradients and transcriptional activation during early development. In
1995, Wieschaus was the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine.

The abstract of the talk is available at: http://indico.ictp.it/event/7946/

The Colloquium will be livestreamed at
http://video.ictp.it/livestream

The poster is attached.

You are all very warmly invited to attend.

Best regards,
Fernando Quevedo






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