About his postdoctoral project

Epithelia are a major tissue type in animals lining the outer surface of the body and organs, the surface of blood vessels and inner organ cavities. During development epithelial tissues  rastically row in size due to cell growth and proliferation. During epithelial growth physical stresses can emerge resulting in the mechanical deformation at the cell and tissue level. How such mechanical stresses emerge initially and how dissipation occurs is not well understood. We here propose to investigate the emergence and impact of mechanical stress patterns on epithelial growth and morphogenesis. We will use a combination of live-imaging and force inference to identify cellular behaviours that either promote or dissipate tissue stress. This will provide a detailed understanding on how growing epithelia cope with mechanical stress in 2D and foster future investigations on stress dissipation in 3D and the emergence of organ shape.