Manli Chuai

This paper develops a mechanochemical model that explains vertebrate gastrulation morphologies by coupling actomyosin activity to tissue flow, showing how different patterns emerge from a uniform state.

The paper manipulates cell behaviours in chick embryos to generate different gastrulation modes, suggesting evolution of these processes is shaped by mesendoderm territory shape and signalling pathways.

The paper identifies Dynamic Morphoskeletons (DM) from cell velocity data to analyze tissue organization during development, revealing spatial attractors and repellers in chicken and fly embryos.

The paper measures junctional tension in chick embryo epiblast cells during primitive streak formation using non-destructive optical manipulation and finds higher tension in mesendoderm cells and in the direction of intercalation.