Gene expression heterogeneity in the maintenance and coordinated differentiation of neuromesodermal progenitors in vivo

Ben is interested in how the embryo develops from a round ball of cells into an elongated body axis. In vertebrates, stem cells called neuromesodermal progenitors continually self-renew and differentiate to provide a continued source of spinal cord and muscle progenitor cells. How the processes of self-renewal and differentiation are precisely balanced during development and growth is an essential question in biology. Ben aims to understand the mechanisms that control this balance by studying the dynamics of neuromesodermal cells across a range of organisms that display differences in the amount of growth which occurs together with axis elongation.