PD Dr. Jörg Grosshans Morphogenesis

The changes in the cell-morphology during development are based on the concerted action of processes like cell proliferation, cell death, cell shape changes, cell rearrangement, and cell migration. To understand this complex cell behavior our lab studies the formation of the cellular blastoderm in Drosophila embryos as an example of morphogenesis by embryological, biochemical and genetic manipulation, as well as direct microscopic analysis. The Drosophila blastoderm embryo consists of one layer of nuclei surrounding the yolk. Within one hour the nuclei are enclosed by the invaginating plasma membrane into fully polarised and interconnected cells. At this stage the 6000 cells have not differentiated yet and behave uniformly.

Detailed information on the project can be found at
www.zmbh.uni-heidelberg.de/Grosshans/default.shtml