Timothy Saunders
Professor at Warwick Medical School interested in how complex shape emerges during embryo development. Will work on anything that can be imaged live :)
- Major pet conference peeve - speakers not speaking to time. It shortens breaks, reduces chances to engage ECRs and sets a bad precedent. Typically the bigger the name, the worse the timing.
- Reposted by Timothy SaundersCells “speed date” to find their perfect neighbors when forming tissues. This marks a pivotal step in creating functional organs, like in this early heart development illustrated in a fly larvae. Learn more: www.cell.com/biophysj/ful... @timesaunders.bsky.social @biophysj.bsky.social
- Reposted by Timothy Saunders👀 Looking for a Master Program in Physics of Life? Preferably free? Maybe in a collaborative and interdisciplinary environment? Check this out👇🏻
- There’s been exciting work recently linking ideas from topology to biological systems. This has ranged from bird flocking (www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....), to gene networks (www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....), and now how nuclei pack in the Drosophila blastocyst (www.nature.com/articles/s41...).
- Such topological behaviour has also been shown to potentially play a role in cell extrusion (www.nature.com/articles/nat...). I wrote a short commentary on this, which is hopefully accessible for the more general audience (www.nature.com/articles/s41...).
- With Ivo Telley, we have looked at packing of nuclei in ex vivo systems (journals.biologists.com/dev/article/..., elifesciences.org/articles/90541). It’s exciting to see how quantitative measurements reveal deeper insight into how biological systems reliably generate complex form from simple rules.
- Of course, biology likes to be complicated. The above work generally takes the microtubule interaction between nuclei to be repulsive - but this doesn’t have to be the case (www.nature.com/articles/s41...). Future work will hopefully reveal how general these principles are.
- Enjoyed doing this interview. Hope it's helpful for a more general audience.
- Latest lab paper is out :) eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A... With Sham Tlili, we show that a surprisingly simple equilibrium physics model can explain the highly dynamic process of cell matching in the heart.
- Reposted by Timothy Saunders
- Read about my amazing PhD student Ryan. Many thanks to CoB for hosting him for 3 months
- 🧪 Each year, we offer professional internships for PhD students. This year Ryan Harrison, a PhD student between the labs of @timesaunders.bsky.social and @jamesbriscoe.bsky.social lab, completed a 12-week internship with our community sites. Read his story: bit.ly/4fihgtX #SciSky #SciComm
- Reposted by Timothy SaundersSince I have so many new friends 😄, I thought I'd advertise this. Together with @pritiagarwal.bsky.social and Lance Davidson, we run a Developmental Mechanics seminar series on Zoom (originally started by Ronen Zaidel-Bar). This coming Thursday, we have our last session for 2024. Join us!!
