Growth and patterning of the vertebrate spinal cord

During an organism’s development, patterns of diverse cell types form within developing tissues at the same time as the tissues grow in size. In many tissues, both cell type specification and growth are controlled by morphogen signaling. In turn, the spatiotemporal profiles of morphogen activity depend on the molecular and biophysical properties of tissues. The goal of our research is to unravel the feedbacks between cell fate specification, tissue growth and morphogen signaling, using the developing vertebrate spinal cord as a model system. Understanding the coordination between pattern formation and growth will provide insights into how the reproducibility and accuracy of organ development is achieved.