Oxford Events, the new replacement for OxTalks, will launch on 16th March. The two-week OxTalks freeze period starts on Monday 2nd March. During this time, there will be no facility to publish or edit events. The existing OxTalks site will remain available to view during this period. Once Oxford Events launches, you will need a Halo login to submit events. Full details are available on the Staff Gateway.
Understanding how does functional order emerges from individual components is a major challenge of current biology. It’s particularly fascinating how epithelial cells organize its components in space and time to shape adhesion mesoscale structures such that they keep a robust and functional architecture that enables tissue homeostasis and organ function. We initially revealed that the initiation of tight junctions is triggered by biomolecular condensates of the protein ZO-1 at the cell adhesion sites. Later, we discovered that a biophysical wetting phenomenon orchestrates the assembly of the tight junction around the apical interface sealing the tissue. We now aim to investigage the molecular assembly of cell-cell adhesions in epithelia tissue and in the pathology of intestinal diseases such IBD exploring biophysical mechanisms involving membrane-condensates. Combining cell biology, super-resolution STED microscopy and chemical biology, we aim to uncover how cells control different physico-chemical environments to drive self-organisation processes that shape mesoscale structures enabling tissue function.
