Till Bretschneider’s main research interest is to understand principles of self-organisation involved in the motion of animal cells. He uses a combined approach based on computational modelling and quantitative imaging to address problems ranging from the multicellular to the molecular level, such as:

a) How do chemical signals organise the collective motion of cells in developmental processes (Computational models of Dictyostelium morphogenesis)?
b) How does the actin cytoskeleton respond to chemical and mechanical stimuli and how can its spatio-temporal dynamics be quantified (Adaptation of Dictyostelium cells to a uniform upshift of chemoattractant, or reorientation of cells in response to alternating shear flows)?
c) What are the underlying mechanisms for pattern formation of the actin cytoskeleton (Quantitative analysis and computational modelling of actin networks, patches, waves and leading edges)?

To address these questions the development of imaging software for the automated analysis of large cell populations becomes increasingly important. In future the analysis of high-throughput video-microscopy data at the single cell level will not only be applied to problems of cell motion, but also to the analysis of temporal gene expression profiles for example.

PhD studentships are available from BBSRC/EPSRC funded Systems Biology, MOAC and Complexity Doctoral Training Centres. We are interested in receiving applications from students with a mathematical or physical sciences background, or with a background in biology. To find out more please follow this link.