Life Sciences Seminar: James Sharpe
Event details
| Date | 11.02.2026 |
| Hour | 14:00 › 15:00 |
| Speaker | James Sharpe |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
| Event Language | English |
Title: Putting it all together: Building a 4D multiscale model of limb development
Abstract:
Limb development is a paradigm model system for understanding organogenesis. The rapid development of cutting-edge technologies over the past decade for omics and imaging provides us with a huge amount of data. But a true understanding of complex biological systems, will require mathematical models which seek not just to represent and predict, but also to understand the underlying dynamical behaviours over time - in other words to explore mechanistic hypotheses. I will explain some of our work both describing and explaining limb development through computer modelling. In particular, we aim, ultimately, to go beyond the individual mechanistic models of sub-parts of the problem (regionalisation, symmetry-breaking, shape control) and to integrate these into a more complete multi-scale model to understand how these basic modules interact and feedback on each other to create the overall layout (or “bauplan”) of the vertebrate limb.
Bio:
James Sharpe was originally captivated by computer programming, but upon learning about the digital nature of the genetic code, chose to study Biology for his undergraduate degree at Oxford University (1988-1991). He then pursued a PhD on the genetic control of embryo development at NIMR, London (1992-1997) with Robb Krumlauf, and in parallel started developing computer simulations of multicellular development. After a short postdoc in Santiago, Chile, with Roberto Mayor, he moved to Edinburgh to focus on building a computer model of the dynamics of limb development, with Duncan Davidson. During this postdoc he invented a new optical imaging technology called Optical Projection Tomography (OPT), which is dedicated to imaging tissues and organs that are too large for normal microscopy. In 2006 he moved to Barcelona, becoming a Senior Group Leader at the Centre for Genomic Regulation, and later becoming the coordinator of the CRG’s Systems Biology Program. His group focused on systems biology approaches to modelling limb development – combining lab experimentation with computer modelling. With this interdisciplinary approach the group demonstrated that the signalling proteins which pattern the fingers during embryogenesis, act as a Turing reaction-diffusion system. In 2017 he left the CRG, and became the Head of the new EMBL Unit in Barcelona, which focuses on Tissue Biology and Disease Modelling. There his research continues to focus on computer modelling of various examples of multicellular organisation, from a multi-scale perspective – from the molecular, through the cellular to the organ level – but still focusing primarily on limb development.
Abstract:
Limb development is a paradigm model system for understanding organogenesis. The rapid development of cutting-edge technologies over the past decade for omics and imaging provides us with a huge amount of data. But a true understanding of complex biological systems, will require mathematical models which seek not just to represent and predict, but also to understand the underlying dynamical behaviours over time - in other words to explore mechanistic hypotheses. I will explain some of our work both describing and explaining limb development through computer modelling. In particular, we aim, ultimately, to go beyond the individual mechanistic models of sub-parts of the problem (regionalisation, symmetry-breaking, shape control) and to integrate these into a more complete multi-scale model to understand how these basic modules interact and feedback on each other to create the overall layout (or “bauplan”) of the vertebrate limb.
Bio:
James Sharpe was originally captivated by computer programming, but upon learning about the digital nature of the genetic code, chose to study Biology for his undergraduate degree at Oxford University (1988-1991). He then pursued a PhD on the genetic control of embryo development at NIMR, London (1992-1997) with Robb Krumlauf, and in parallel started developing computer simulations of multicellular development. After a short postdoc in Santiago, Chile, with Roberto Mayor, he moved to Edinburgh to focus on building a computer model of the dynamics of limb development, with Duncan Davidson. During this postdoc he invented a new optical imaging technology called Optical Projection Tomography (OPT), which is dedicated to imaging tissues and organs that are too large for normal microscopy. In 2006 he moved to Barcelona, becoming a Senior Group Leader at the Centre for Genomic Regulation, and later becoming the coordinator of the CRG’s Systems Biology Program. His group focused on systems biology approaches to modelling limb development – combining lab experimentation with computer modelling. With this interdisciplinary approach the group demonstrated that the signalling proteins which pattern the fingers during embryogenesis, act as a Turing reaction-diffusion system. In 2017 he left the CRG, and became the Head of the new EMBL Unit in Barcelona, which focuses on Tissue Biology and Disease Modelling. There his research continues to focus on computer modelling of various examples of multicellular organisation, from a multi-scale perspective – from the molecular, through the cellular to the organ level – but still focusing primarily on limb development.
Practical information
- Informed public
- Free
Organizer
- SV Deanship
Contact
- Eva Schier