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SUMMARY:Self-Organization and Information Flow in Multicellular Systems
DTSTART:20240229T091500
DTEND:20240229T101500
DTSTAMP:20260407T195117Z
UID:808c2c2912acd60dbf2abca6450016106fca9d78dcc4061aa7c04515
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:David B. Brückner\, Ph.D.\, postdoctoral researcher at ISTA\,
  the Institute of Science and Technology Austria\, Klosterneuburg/Vienna (
 AT)\nBIOENGINEERING SEMINAR\n \nAbstract:\nEmbryonic development is a sp
 ectacular display of self-organization of multi-cellular systems\, combini
 ng transformations of tissue shape and patterns of gene expression. Such 
 patterning occurs in a reproducible manner despite the inevitable presen
 ce of stochastic fluctuations. Yet\, how tissues obtain information to m
 ake reliable cell fate decisions remains a key open question. I will disc
 uss theoretical approaches to understand the role of fluctuations in deve
 lopmental systems across scales: from the stochastic dynamics of subcell
 ular gene regulatory elements to self-organized patterning at the tissue 
 scale. First\, I will discuss a polymer physics framework to understand 
 how fluctuations control the stochastic search process of enhancer-promo
 ter pairs during transcriptional activation in fly embryonic patterning. 
 Zooming out to the tissue scale\, I will introduce a dynamical systems a
 pproach to understand how tissue-level fluctuations of cell signaling act
 ivity kickstart self-organized cell fate patterning in intestinal organoi
 ds. Finally\, I show how information theory can formalize the whole sequ
 ence of steps from initial fluctuations to signaling to cell fate decisio
 ns in a unifying theoretical framework. Together\, these approaches demon
 strate how developmental systems both leverage and mitigate fluctuations
  across scales to ensure reproducible developmental outcomes.\n\nBio:\nA
 t IST Austria\, I work with Edouard Hannezo and Gašper Tkačik. I am also
  a Fellow of the NOMIS Foundation and my research is supported by an EMBO 
 Postdoctoral Fellowship. I did my PhD in the group of Chase Broedersz at t
 he Arnold-Sommerfeld-Center for Theoretical Physics at the LMU Munich on t
 he stochastic dynamics of migrating cells\, for which I received the Gusta
 v-Hertz-Prize of the German Physical Society and the Dissertation Award of
  the Munich University Association. During my PhD\, I was an Add-on Fellow
  of the Joachim Herz Foundation and my work was supported by a DFG Fellows
 hip within the Graduate School of Quantitative Biosciences Munich. I did m
 y undergraduate studies at the University of Cambridge\, which were suppor
 ted by a scholarship from the German Studienstiftung. In my master's thesi
 s\, I developed hydrodynamic simulations of colloidal thermophoresis under
  the supervision of Erika Eiser and Daan Frenkel.\n\n\nZoom link for atten
 ding remotely\, if needed: https://epfl.zoom.us/j/65840790132
LOCATION:SV 1717 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==SV%201717 https://epfl.zoom.u
 s/j/65840790132
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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