Pattern Formation
Patterning in Notch-Delta signalling systems
During my PhD, my main interests included understanding the development of sensory organ precursor cells in several epithelial tissues of the Drosophila melanogaster fly and developing a fitting mathematical model of the crucial mechanisms and dynamics involved in such a system.Other ongoing and more theoretical work aims to relate more generalised systems of long-range signalling and their predominant mathematical features, by performing linear stability analysis to better understand the robustness of well-established Notch-Delta models under certain parameter regions
More generally, understanding pattern formation derived from cell-cell interactions has been a major theme in cellular biology for many years and it has motivated me to focus my research on this area. Specifically, the existence of lateral-inhibition mechanisms present in the Notch-Delta signalling pathway triggered a vast discussion among experimental biologists and applied mathematicians. Many dynamical systems and ODE models have been developed as a consequence of this discussion, some of which focus not only on juxtacrine signalling but also long-range signalling by considering cell protrusions reaching non-neighbouring cells. In the future, I plan to further extend such mechanisms and well-understood pathways to the human case and possibly trace back Notch role in cancer and other diseases.
