Quantitative Organism Biology

Cells of multicellular organisms cooperate to ensure body development and maintenance. They do this in a collective distributed manner, without any master or plan. The Quantitative Organism Biology group studies the multilevel mechanisms that give rise to whole organism properties, in search for general principles of biological organisation and, eventually, the design of artificial systems. One of our main research interest is the immune system, whose cells collectively ensure body housekeeping and homeostasis, prevent autoimmune diseases, and fight cancer and infections. We also investigate cell and tissue morphodynamic processes taking place during embryonic development to generate metazoan body shapes.