Charisios Tsiairis

Group News
May 2, 2023 Revealing how an embryo’s cells sync up |
Jan 4, 2023 How cells choose between two fates |
Dec 10, 2021 Mechanical forces shape the ‘immortal’ Hydra |
All group news |
Resources
Charisios Tsiairis
Self-organizing cellular systems
A milestone was reached when cells, the atoms of life, got assembled in organized multicellular entities. We are interested in identifying the conditions and rules that enable groups of cells to acquire an ordered structure, especially when external guidance is absent through self-organization.
A clump of randomly mixed cells from the freshwater polyp Hydra represents an extreme case of self-organizing abilities. These cells are able to self-organize into an entire new animal. As the spherical clump of cells tries to build an animal, it goes through mechanochemical oscillations and we want to understand how such behavior facilitates patterning.
Another cellular system from mammals that displays self-organizing properties are the cells of presomitic mesoderm, an embryonic tissue that gives rise to the vertebrae. These cells get organized around evenly spaced centers. From these centers a "Mexican wave" of gene expression sweeps the organizing tissue. We want to know how cells exchange information and adjust their rhythm to generate wave patterns.
In the lab we use quantitative live imaging of these systems in combination with chemical and genetic perturbations. We are exploiting tools from mathematics and physics to understand the complex phenomena of self-organizing cellular systems.
Contact
Charisios Tsiairis
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.
Tsiairis CD, Aulehla A (2016) Self-Organization of embryonic oscillators into spatiotemporal wave patterns.
Cell 164:656-667Lauschke VM*, Tsiairis CD*, Francois P, Aulehla A (2013) Scaling of embryonic patterning based on phase-gradient encoding
Nature 493:101-105* Joint first authors
Nakamura Y, Tsiairis CD, Ozbek S, Holstein TW (2011) Auoregulatory and repressive inputs localize Hydra Wnz3 to the head organizer.
PNAS 108:9137-9142Full list of publications
» Search with Medline
Members
Group leader

In current position since 2016
» Contact details
PhD students

In current position since 2022
» Contact details

In current position since 2020
» Contact details

In current position since 2018
» Contact details

In current position since 2022
» Contact details
Technical/Research associates

In current position since 2016
» Contact details