Objective
The periodic formation of somites along the anteroposterior axis of the embryo involves a molecular oscillator, the segmentation clock, as revealed by the expression of cyclic genes in the presomitic medoderm. Notch signalling controls cyclic gene expression, but it is not clear yet whether it operates as a component of the clock, a regulator of it, or both.
The project I will develop in the Amacher laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley aims at better understanding the molecular mechanisms controlling the clock. First, in order to identify new molecules involved in the clock control, I will characterize two zebrafish mutations recently identified in the Amacher laboratory that likely disrupt new regulators of the cyclic genes.
Second, I will analyze at a single cell level how Notch signalling and individual components of this pathway control segmentation. For this, I will develop real-time reporters of the clock activity (tools currently greatly needed in the somitogenesis field) and examine with time lapse imaging how oscillations of the clock in individual cells are affected when Notch signalling is impaired in those cells or their neighbours.
From my previous MSc and PhD work, I became familiar with the fields of somitogenesis and neural induction and with the chick and Xenopus models. The Amacher laboratory will offer me a strong scientific environment to broaden my knowledge in patterning questions, learn zebrafish techniques and improve my international experience, in a renowned institution.
After my post-doc, I will be able to establish the zebrafish model in the group of Laurent Kodjabachian at the Institute for Developmental Biology of Marseille, and develop novel approaches to study early fate decisions in the Vertebrate embryo.
I will apply imaging and genetic methods learnt at Berkeley to study the link between differentiation and cell behaviour, a problem, which largely remains to be explored.
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.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesdevelopmental biology
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticsmutation
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineembryology
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Keywords
Call for proposal
FP6-2005-MOBILITY-6
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
OIF - Marie Curie actions-Outgoing International FellowshipsCoordinator
PARIS
France