Host: Professor Kate Storey

Venue: MSI-Small lecture theatre 

Jonathan Slack is a very successful scientist indeed he was awarded the BSDB’s Waddington medal in 2002 for his contributions our understanding of mesoderm induction, regenerative biology and his research into cell transdifferentiation. Jonathan has also been hugely influential through his books. It is his mastery in textbook and essential guide writing that won him the Wolpert medal in 2023. 

It is a great pleasure and privilege for us that Jonathan has come to Dundee to give one of his “Wolpert Medal tour lectures”. Jonathan is a fantastic science communicator - his talks are always entertaining, full of fascinating findings and insights and convey a sense of how science is done – he will be talking about homeosis -the transformation of one part of the body into another-, diabetes and science communication. 

Jonathan’s books include From Egg to Embryo (1983/1991), lauded as the best overview of developmental biology and essential reading for all students at the time. Its clarity and breadth are still wonderful. This was followed by Egg and Ego: an almost true story of life in the biology lab (1999), a humous, ironic look at a particular time in science and how people did/do science. More recently, Jonathan published several OUP mini books: A very short introduction to “Stem Cells” (2012) and “Genes” (2014), both with very recent 2nd editions. These semi-lay books are fantastic examples of how to distil lots of information and capture the essence of a topic.  Jonathan is masterful at this. Next came Essential Developmental Biology used by many developmental biology programmes at Universities around the world as their core course textbook. 

Hosts: Professors Jens Januschke & Rastko Sknepnek

Venue: MSI Small Lecture Theatre

Abstract

How does complex organ shape emerge during development? How is organ formation coordinated to ensure robust morphogenesis? We use quantitative biology techniques and modelling to help answer these important questions. We are particularly interested in how mechanical interactions guide morphogenesis, and how such mechanics interact with signalling networks during development.

In this talk, I will discuss how the complex form of the skeletal muscle emerges during development. This will span from how preadaxial cells are mechanically defined with the presomitic mesoderm through to how elongating muscle fibres pack coherently within the newly formed myotome segments. This work reveals that the balance between cell fate, cell adhesion, internal cellular mechanical processes and boundary constraints is tightly regulated during morphogenesis to ensure robust formation of the skeletal muscle.