My PhD aims to understand how organs are built during development. To understand this, I am using the Drosophila (fruit fly) retina as a model system. Drosophila is a great model system with a wealth of genetic tools which enables scientists to understand the fundamental principles of morphogenesis. For instance, we can tag proteins of interest with fluorescent proteins, knock down genes and express genes in a spatiotemporal manner, and manipulate genes in specific cell types.
More specifically, I am trying to understand how cells change their shape and how this is coordinated across a tissue to generate the 3D shape of the compound fly eye. This includes understanding how cells remodel their basal geometry and how the underlying extracellular matrix is remodelled concomitantly with morphogenesis. My work uses a combination of live and fixed imaging, genetic studies, and mathematical modelling to unravel the principles of morphogenesis. With this, I hope to understand how cells coordinate morphogenesis whilst maintaining tissue integrity when forces are generated to drive cell and tissue shape changes.
BEYOND THE LENS 