Collective movements in living tissues
Living systems have a remarkable ability to orchestrate shape change events and achieve correct final tissue shapes despite large amount of variability and noise inherent to biological systems.
THe Yevick lab focuses on the physics of how mechanical interactions between cells inside tissues ensure robust 3D shape change.
We explore these questions using both the fruit fly, and cultured tissues as model systems. We harnesses the power of quantitative image analysis, deep learning, and mechanical modeling to decipher population level dynamics.
developmental robustess.
The fruit fly embryo is able to fold and change shape with remarkable precision under a wide variety of mechanical and genetic perturbations. We identified that this mechanical robustness can be explained by patterns of interconnectivity between cells in the tissue.
what are the limits of developmental robustness?
machine learning for biological discovery.
How is the mechanical integrity of a giant cell ensured ?
mechanobiology of the human placenta
The outer multinucleated layer of the placenta reaches the striking size of around 10m2 at term. A healthy pregnancy relies on the barrier function of this huge syncytiotrophoblast. which acts as a chemical and mechanical barrier between fetus and mother. The syncytiotrophoblast is mechanically strained during placental morphogenesis. How does it resist rupturing while lacking the rigidifying features of cell-cell junctions present in multicellular tissues? To probe the mechanics of this giant placental cell we control cell fusion in vitro and perform force measurements, live imaging, quantitative microscopy and predictive machine learning on the resultant placental tissues of ranging sizes.