Cell and Developmental Biology

We study diverse organisms and processes to uncover the common principles and evolutionary innovations that drive life. Our goal is to understand how life preserves, reshapes, and diversifies its fundamental building blocks across generations. We investigate the cellular and molecular mechanisms that shape development and evolution, focusing on key processes: the inheritance of mitochondria and germline formation, the role of microglia in embryonic neurogenesis, the impact of environmental pollution on embryogenesis, and how neuronal diversity emerges and evolves across the animal kingdom. Through comparative and interdisciplinary approaches that integrate single-cell genomics, developmental biology, and comparative approaches in diverse model organisms we want to reveal how genetic, cellular, and environmental factors interact to control development, and how conserved regulatory programs are modified to generate evolutionary innovations.