Matthew Towers

The paper shows that the Shh-p27Kip1 pathway in avian ZPAs controls digit number and identity, and demonstrates that manipulating this pathway can transform chick legs into mammalian-like pentadactyl limbs.

This study generates human hindlimb/genital tubercle progenitors from pluripotent stem cells using WNT-FGF-BMP signaling and shows their developmental potency through xenografting.

The paper identifies Fgf signalling's role in triggering a mesodermal timer that controls limb patterning duration using an ex vivo chick wing explant system.

This study identifies a BMP signaling wave that drives anteroposterior specification of the tuberal hypothalamus in chicken embryos.

The paper trains a deep convolutional neural network to accurately classify chick embryos from images, achieving high accuracy on both brain and wing tissues.

The paper compares wing development in quail and chick to show that developmental timing, controlled by retinoic acid, dictates skeletal pattern expansion differences between species.

The paper shows that a Sonic hedgehog signaling gradient in chick embryos specifies flight feather patterns and identity through gene expression.

The paper shows that limb bud outgrowth termination is driven by an intrinsic cell cycle timer, not extrinsic signalling, and identifies a temporal switch in BMP signalling as a key regulator.