Project description
Understanding symmetry breaking in animal development
Understanding how an animal’s body plan develops is a challenge. It is hampered by the gap between genetic and biophysical research and the lack of methods to recreate multicellular tissue organisation. The ERC-funded BREAKDANCE project aims to investigate early animal development, specifically how cell differentiation breaks symmetry and establishes the body axis. It will uncover the mechanisms behind this process by examining tissue geometry, physical boundaries, and cell interactions. Key questions include how shape, size, and geometry influence cellular behaviour and cell fate across species. Using mouse, zebrafish, and human embryonic stem cells, the project will develop new methods to study tissue dynamics. The results will contribute to the design of artificial tissues and organs.
Objective
Understanding the establishment of an animal body plan is an important challenge of modern biology. Progress has been mainly limited by (1) a separation of research fields studying genetic and biophysical mechanisms, and (2) a lack of approaches to mimic multicellular tissue organization from first principles. In a cross- disciplinary effort, we will focus on the earliest stages of animal development, when first steps of cell differentiation define the primary body axis through spatial symmetry breaking, laying the foundation for the future body plan. Our goal is to identify the fundamental mechanisms controlling this symmetry breaking process. To this end, we will study in detail the interplay between global tissue geometry (shape, size, and dimension), physical boundary conditions, and mechano-chemical cell interactions. Therefore, we address the following questions: (i) How do global shape and size control local cellular states and interactions? (ii) How do local cellular states and interactions induce robust symmetry breaking at the tissue level? (iii) To which extent can geometry control cell fate specification in a species-independent manner? To overcome previous limitations, we will establish a comprehensive methodological toolbox of synthetic bottom-up approaches and functional ex-vivo assays. We use as model systems mouse, zebrafish, and later also human embryonic stem cells. This will be combined with advanced biophysical techniques and theoretical modeling in order to systematically dissect the mutual couplings between genetic patterning mechanisms and morphogenetic processes, thereby revealing the multicellular dance underlying tissue symmetry breaking. Our results will shed new light on the long-standing question of how complex biological forms are robustly built from a single fertilized egg, impacting on our understanding of organism development and maintenance, and opening new directions for the controlled design of artificial tissues and organs.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC-SYG - HORIZON ERC Synergy Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2022-SYG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
69117 Heidelberg
Germany
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.