Postdoctoral Training Fellow - NW Goehring Lab

Work in the Goehring lab aims to understand how cell polarity is established by molecular networks that transduce symmetry-breaking cues into stable molecular asymmetries. Our work focuses on a conserved polarity network defined by the PAR (PAR-titioning defective) proteins, which underlie polarity in diverse contexts, including defining epithelial architecture and function, driving asymmetric division of stem cells, and specifying cell fate of embryonic blastomeres.

Using the C. elegans embryo as a model, our interdisciplinary team combines genetics, quantitative imaging, in vivo biophysics, and mathematical modelling to link system-level properties of the PAR network to molecular behaviours, thereby providing a multi-scale model for how PAR proteins polarize cells in response to developmental cues and ultimately how polarized patterns are read out by the downstream pathways that define a cell’s functional polarity. For more detail, please see our website.