Mechanisms of Morphogenesis

Since 1995 Davies has run his own laboratory at the University of Edinburgh, with a multidisciplinary focus on discovering how mammalian organs construct themselves and how we can use apply knowledge to build new tissues and organs for those in need. Some of the work of his 20-strong research team is 'conventional' developmental biology; identifying signals and mechanisms used in natural organ development. Some is bioinformatic analysis (we host the editorial office of an international database for renal development – www.gudmap.org – funded by the USA National Institutes of Health, and the www.guidetopharmacology.org database, an international effort for the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology). Some of his work is in tissue engineering – his lab has recently developed a method to produce engineered 'fetal kidneys' from simple suspensions of stem cells, an activity that attracted considerable press attention last year. Finally, his lab is pioneering the application of synthetic biology techniques to tissue engineering, to 'program' cells to make structures that are designed rather than evolved. Davies has published around 140 research papers in the field of mammalian development, has published one major specialist monograph (Mechanisms of Morphogenesis, Elsevier, 2005 2nd Ed 2014), one public engagement book (Life Unfoloding, OUP, 2013 (Hardback), 2015 (paperback), now in translation also) and has edited three multi-author books in the fields of development, stem cells and tissue engineering. His contributions to research and teaching in this area have been recognized by having been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Davies served as Deputy Chair of the National Centre for 3Rs, a government agency that promotes research that refines, reduces or replaces animal experiments. He has also served as Editor-in-Chief of the research journal Organogenesis for 8 years, and is currently an Editor of Journal of Anatomy and PLOS One.

Section I: Introduction 1. General introduction – the aims and structure of this book. 2. Key principles of morphogenesis 3. The power and limitations of self-assembly

Section II: Cell shape and the cell morphogenesis 4. Morphogenesis of individual cells 5. Animal cell shape: the importance of the cytoskeleton 6. Cellular morphogenesis in plants

Section III: Cell Migration 7. Cell migration in development: a brief overview 8. The nanomachinery of locomotion 9. Guidance by chemotaxis 10. Guidance by galvanotaxis 11. Guidance by contact 12. Waypoint navigation in the embryo 13. Cooperative migration of mesenchymal cells 14. Condensation of cells

Section IV: Epithelial Morphogenesis 15. The epithelial state: a brief overview 16. Neighbour exchange and convergent extension 17. Closure of holes 18. Invagination and evagination 19. Epithelial fusion 20. Epithelial branching 21. Boundaries to epithelial movement

Section V: Morphogenesis by cell proliferation and death 22. Growth, proliferation and death: a brief overview 23. Morphogenesis by orientated cell division 24. Morphogenesis by elective cell death

Section VI: Morphogenesis in context 25. From mechanisms to morphology: a brief overview 26. Morphogenesis in embryos: some illustrative examples 27. Morphogenesis in organoids, embryoids and engineered tissues 28. Pathological morphogenesis

Section VII: Modelling morphogenesis 29. Modelling morphogenesis: a brief overview 30. Mechanical and mathematical models of morphogenesis 31. Modelling using living cells – tissue engineering and synthetic morphology

Section VIII: Conclusion and perspectives 32. Conclusion and perspectives