Single cell genomics of dynamical cell fate decisions

Christopher Thompson (primary)
Genetics, Evolution and Environment
UCL
Ruben Perez-Carrasco (secondary)
Mathematics
UCL

Abstract

Embryonic development is a wonder of biology. The differentiation of thousands of cells must be organised in space and time. How robust and reproducible cell differentiation is coordinated remains a fundamental question.

The advent of ‘single cell genomics’ offers an unprecedented opportunity to address this question. It allows gene networks controlling differentiation to be determined and gene expression to be followed as cells transition from pluripotent to differentiated states.

Your goal will be to develop computational methods to interpret this revolutionary data, design a novel theoretical framework for understanding differentiation and experimentally test these ideas in the lab.


References

N Gruenheit, C Brimson, EJ. Johnson, K Parkinson, K Nagayama, J Llewellyn, B Stewart, T Keller, W van Zon, SL. Cotter and CRL. Thompson Robust cell type proportioning by a noisy oscillator, Developmental Cell, in revision

Averbukh, I., Gavish, A., Shilo, B.-Z., and Barkai, N. Dealing with noise: The challenge of buffering biological variability. Current Opinion in Systems Biology 1, 69-74. (2017)

Soufi, A., and Dalton, S. Cycling through developmental decisions: how cell cycle dynamics control pluripotency, differentiation and reprogramming. Development 143, 4301-4311. (2016)

Chattwood A, Nagayama K, Bolourani P, Harkin L, Kamjoo M, Weeks G, *Thompson CRL. Developmental lineage priming in Dictyostelium by heterogeneous Ras activation. eLife, vol 2:e01067. (2013)

Pauklin S, Vallier L.The cell-cycle state of stem cells determines cell fate propensity. Cell (2013)


BBSRC Area
Genes, development and STEM* approaches to biology
Area of Biology
DevelopmentEvolution
Techniques & Approaches
BioinformaticsGeneticsMathematics / StatisticsMicroscopy / ElectrophysiologyMolecular BiologySimulation / Modelling