Please note: Each talk is 30 minutes with the whole seminar running from 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Shannon Keenan (Shvartsman Lab): “A data fusion approach to developmental patterning” 

A highly conserved transcriptional network orchestrates terminal patterning of the Drosophila embryo, playing a critical role in the subsequent formation of the gut. We have used the MS2/MCP mRNA labeling system and light sheet imaging to monitor the individual components of this network across 90 minutes prior to gastrulation. We developed a computational approach for fusing the imaging datasets for individual components into a common multivariable trajectory. We will discuss the details, advantages, and statistical and conceptual limitations of our heterogeneous data fusion approach, and demonstrate how it reveals low dimensionality of tissue patterning and cell fate specification. The high conservation of this network suggests that our results could provide insight into mechanisms of gene regulation during development of other species. The presented data fusion strategy is the first step towards our overarching aim of establishing a unified framework for exploring how stochastic spatiotemporal signals give rise to highly reproducible morphogenetic processes.

Joshua Akey, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics: “Genetic tales of human history”