Prisca Liberali
Group News
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Jul 13, 2026 How the gut rebuilds order after injury |
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Mar 25, 2025 Shaping the gut: how tissue mechanics drives intestinal organoids formation |
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Jun 27, 2024 Basel verleiht Wissenschaftspreis an Biomedizinerin |
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Jun 26, 2024 Basel honors Prisca Liberali with prestigious Science Prize |
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Jun 11, 2024 Video: New light-sheet microscope for multicellular systems unveiled |
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Prisca Liberali
How do cells coordinate to build, regenerate and adapt tissues?
Multicellular systems achieve remarkable coordination and robustness. Individual cells continuously sense their neighbours, their physical environment and their own internal state, yet together they generate reproducible patterns, architectures and functions.
Our laboratory aims to uncover the principles that connect single-cell decisions to collective tissue behaviour.
We study how cellular heterogeneity is generated, interpreted and coordinated across scales — from molecular and chromatin states, to cell-cell communication and mechanics, to the emergence of tissue architecture. Rather than viewing variability between cells as noise, we ask how tissues use these differences to make collective decisions, break symmetry, regenerate after injury and remain robust in changing environments.
To address these questions, we combine organoids and other self-organizing multicellular systems with quantitative live imaging, high-content perturbation screens, single-cell and spatial genomics, biophysical approaches and predictive modelling. These technologies allow us to follow thousands of cells and tissues across space and time and to experimentally uncover the interaction rules that drive their collective behaviour.
Ultimately, we want to understand the design principles of multicellular coordination: how information is integrated across molecular, cellular and tissue scales to produce robust yet adaptable biological systems — and how these principles change during regeneration, ageing and disease.
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Prisca Liberali
Our work aims to uncover how cellular states, cell–cell interactions and tissue-level properties are coordinated across scales to generate robust multicellular organization. Selected publications below highlight our contributions to understanding self-organization, regeneration, tissue patterning and morphogenesis, as well as the quantitative imaging approaches that make these processes experimentally accessible.
This is a list of selected publications from this group. For a full list of publications, please visit our Publications page and search by group name.
Schwayer C*, Barbiero S*, Brückner DB* et al., Liberali P (2026) Multiscale integration of tissue and chromatin context converts cell heterogeneity into stable intestinal patterning.
Cell 189, 5266-5282.e17Xue SL*, Yang Q*, Liberali P, Hannezo E (2025) Mechanochemical bistability of intestinal organoids enables robust morphogenesis.
Nature Physics 21, 608-617Moos F*, Suppinger S*, de Medeiros G, Oost KC, Boni A, Rémy C, Weevers SL, Tsiairis C, Strnad P, Liberali P (2024) Open-top multisample dual-view light-sheet microscope for live imaging of large multicellular systems.
Nature Methods 21, 798-803Liberali P, Schier AF (2024) The evolution of developmental biology through conceptual and technological revolutions.
Cell 187, 3461-3495Suppinger S, Zinner M, Aizarani N, Lukonin I, Ortiz R, Azzi C, Stadler MB, Vianello S, Palla G, Kohler H, Mayran A, Lutolf MP, Liberali P (2023) Multimodal characterization of murine gastruloid development.
Cell Stem Cell 30, 867-884.e11de Medeiros G, Ortiz R, Strnad P, Boni A, Moos F, Repina N, Challet Meylan L, Maurer F, Liberali P (2022) Multiscale light-sheet organoid imaging framework.
Nature Communications 13, 4864Yang Q & Liberali P. (2021) Collective behaviours in organoids.
Exp Mol Med. 53, 1495-1502Lukonin I, Serra D, Challet Meylan L, Volkmann K, Baaten J, Zhao, R Meeusen S, Colman K, Maurer F, Stadler MB, Jenkins J, Liberali P (2020) Phenotypic landscape of intestinal organoid regeneration.
Nature. 586, 275-280Zinner M*, Lukonin I*, Liberali P (2020) Design principles of tissue organisation: How single cells coordinate across scales.
Current Opinion in Cell Biology. 67, 37-45Serra D*, Mayr U*, Boni A*, Lukonin I, Rempfler M, Challet Meylan L, Stadler MB, Strnad P, Papasaikas P, Vischi D, Waldt A, Roma G, Liberali P. (2019) Self-organization and symmetry breaking in intestinal organoid development.
Nature. 569, 66-72Full list of publications
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