Biology

Dr. Anand Pratap Singh
Mechanobiology Institute, Singapore

Biological processes are highly dynamic and occur over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. However, most of the available live imaging tools do not cover the spatio-temporal range. Here we present light sheet microscopy as a novel quantitative bioimaging tool to understand the complex behavior of proteins at the single molecule level in live cells (timescales ~1-100 ms). Further, we applied this in toto imaging tool (a modified version) to follow organogenesis in developing Drosophila embryos. During embryogenesis, the Drosophila nervous system undergoes coordinated changes in shape and size (growth and condensation) over several hours to achieve its final architecture. We hypothesize that these changes are spatially and temporally coordinated with other morphogenetic phenomena. Combining Drosophila genetics with lightsheet microscopy now allows us to follow organogenesis of the central nervous system in sufficientlyhigh spatio-temporal resolution to enable us to dissect these different interlinked processes.