A fruit fly wing is a testing ground for understanding how millions of molecules coordinate to build a correctly shaped organ. The problem is fundamental: we know that when tissues fail to form properly, developmental diseases or cancer can result, but we do not understand the basic rules by which individual cells orient themselves relative to one another to create a functioning organ many times their size. This gap in knowledge prevents us from intervening when shape control goes wrong. The researchers will manipulate specific proteins in fruit fly wings, then use mathematics and computer simulations to model how cell orientation scales up to tissue shape. They will test those predictions with further experiments, refining the rules until they capture the underlying principles. This is fundamental science. There is no immediate practical application. But understanding how self-organised patterning works across scales—from molecules to cells to whole tissues—could eventually inform strategies for correcting developmental abnormalities or controlling tissue growth in regenerative medicine. Similar fundamental work on pattern formation in flies has already revealed principles that apply broadly across animal biology.
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As our body grows, how does each organ control its shape and form? We know that when this doesn't happen correctly, we can get developmental diseases or cancer. If we can understand the ways of controlling shape and form, then perhaps we will be able to intervene to correct these diseases. We know that each organ or tissue is made of many cells and each cell is made of very many molecules such as proteins. But how do many small molecules interact together so that each cell has the correct form, and how do many cells interact together to form an organ with the correct form, many millions of times larger than each molecule? One important way that an organ can control its form is by correctly orienting its cells relative to each other. This is true not just in humans, but in all animals, including the humble fruit fly. Here, we plan to study the fruit fly wing, where we can quickly and easily do experiments to manipulate the production of particular proteins and explore how this affects the orientation of individual cells and, in turn, the shape and function of the whole tissue (in this case, a wing). We will also use mathematics and physics to put our experimental evidence together and help us to understand these mechanisms, by simulating them in the computer and making predictions about how the proteins and cells of the wing should behave if we manipulate it in some way. We will then test these predictions by doing further experiments, which will allow us to decide if the original assumptions were correct and ultimately understand the principles behind how the coordination of cell orientation contributes to the form and function of animal organs.
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