Inaugural Lecture // Building the Body with Clocks
Event details
| Date | 13.09.2018 |
| Hour | 17:15 › 18:15 |
| Speaker | Prof. Andy Oates, Institute of Bioengineering, EPFL |
| Location | |
| Category | Inaugural lectures - Honorary Lecture |
INAUGURAL LECTURE
Abstract:
Our own bodies, like those of most animals, are segmented. This is most obvious in the structure of the backbone, a row of repeating bony units that supports the body and head. The backbone is formed sequentially during the embryo’s early development, each new unit being added rhythmically from head to tail. When this process does not work properly, the embryo’s backbone is malformed, a condition known as congenital scoliosis. Remarkably, an internal biological clock governs the timing and placement of each new segment. We use the zebrafish as a model organism to study this process because the zebrafish embryo has prominent segments that are easy to film through a microscope. I will describe the work we have done to understand how this clock maintains synchrony amongst its parts, and how it sends an output signal to make each new body segment. Our work has revealed a hidden world of microscopic clocks ticking at the beginning of each embryo’s life and offers insight into both normal development and disease. This basic research has potential applications in both the clinic and engineering.
Program:
- Introduction by Prof. Gisou van der Goot, Dean of Life Sciences
- Inaugural Lecture
- apéritif
Bio:
Andrew Oates received his PhD at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and the University of Melbourne. He did his postdoc at Princeton University and the University of Chicago in the lab of Robert Ho, where he had begun studies on the zebrafish segmentation clock in 1998. In 2003 he moved to Germany and started his group at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden. In 2012 he accepted a position at University College London as Professor of vertebrate developmental genetics and moved his group to the MRC-National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill in London. In April 2015, he became a member of the Francis Crick Institute in London. In September 2016, he joined EPFL as a Professor where he now directs the Timing, Oscillation, Patterns Laboratory, composed of biologists, engineers, and physicists who use molecular genetics, quantitative imaging, and theoretical analysis.
Abstract:
Our own bodies, like those of most animals, are segmented. This is most obvious in the structure of the backbone, a row of repeating bony units that supports the body and head. The backbone is formed sequentially during the embryo’s early development, each new unit being added rhythmically from head to tail. When this process does not work properly, the embryo’s backbone is malformed, a condition known as congenital scoliosis. Remarkably, an internal biological clock governs the timing and placement of each new segment. We use the zebrafish as a model organism to study this process because the zebrafish embryo has prominent segments that are easy to film through a microscope. I will describe the work we have done to understand how this clock maintains synchrony amongst its parts, and how it sends an output signal to make each new body segment. Our work has revealed a hidden world of microscopic clocks ticking at the beginning of each embryo’s life and offers insight into both normal development and disease. This basic research has potential applications in both the clinic and engineering.
Program:
- Introduction by Prof. Gisou van der Goot, Dean of Life Sciences
- Inaugural Lecture
- apéritif
Bio:
Andrew Oates received his PhD at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and the University of Melbourne. He did his postdoc at Princeton University and the University of Chicago in the lab of Robert Ho, where he had begun studies on the zebrafish segmentation clock in 1998. In 2003 he moved to Germany and started his group at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden. In 2012 he accepted a position at University College London as Professor of vertebrate developmental genetics and moved his group to the MRC-National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill in London. In April 2015, he became a member of the Francis Crick Institute in London. In September 2016, he joined EPFL as a Professor where he now directs the Timing, Oscillation, Patterns Laboratory, composed of biologists, engineers, and physicists who use molecular genetics, quantitative imaging, and theoretical analysis.
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Practical information
- General public
- Registration required
Organizer
- EPFL School of Life Sciences