Developmental Biology is the study of the molecular and cellular events underlying the formation of living organisms. Now that the sequencing of the genome of several species, including humans, is completed, a major challenge facing biology is deciphering how this genetic blueprint is transformed into an organism and how this blueprint is modulated by environmental or epigenetic factors. Discoveries in Developmental Biology are central to major biomedical advances in the fields of Tissue Engineering, Regenerative Medicine, Reproductive Technologies, Functional Genomics and Transplantation Sciences.
Regenerative biology is a recent differentiation of developmental biology attempting to recapitulate developmental processes to produce new tissue. Using models as diverse as human, mice, zebrafish and stem cells our biomedical scientists investigate questions of mechanism to probe transcriptional control mechanisms, embryonic patterning, cell-cell interactions, growth factors, signal transduction and regulatory hierarchies.
Vision Statement
Our aim is to illuminate how cells from various organisms and tissues come to assume their specialized roles, through targeted migration, proliferation and selective programmed cell death and connection and communication with neighbouring cells to co-ordinate their functions as an organism.
Developmental Biologists at UQ address some of the most important biomedical issues of our time including cancer biology and stem cell-based therapies. In addition we provide key technology platforms for studying genome function by gain-of-function (transgenic) and loss-of-function (knockout, knockdown) approaches.
Group Strengths