image: Development is the process of a single cell (left) shaping into a three-dimensional embryo (right).
Credit: Mark Belan/artsci studios
Carl-Philipp Heisenberg is a developmental biologist, who has spent over two decades investigating how an embryo develops from a random cluster of cells to a three-dimensional structure. Despite the many years dedicated to this research, his curiosity remains undiminished. He is particularly interested in why data often contradicts prediction or intuition, aiming to uncover the unexpected. This trait has recently helped him secure a prestigious five-year grant from the Swiss NOMIS Foundation, valued at one million euros.
How life begins
The fertilization of a single-celled egg marks the starting point of human life. Following fertilization, the egg (zygote) starts to divide, leading to the formation of the blastoderm—the initial embryonic tissue that gives rise to all the tissues and organs in animals.
During these first cell divisions, or ‘cleavages’ as scientists call them, the cytoplasm—the fluid within the cell that contains all its components—gets evenly distributed amongst two daughter cells. This ensures that each daughter cell inherits a full set of components needed for their further development. “It’s a process called cytokinesis,” explains Heisenberg. “While some animals, such as the fruit fly, seemingly lack cytokinesis during the initial stages of their development, others like mice undergo cytokinesis right from the start of their development.” Given the vast variation amongst species, a question emerges: What role does cytokinesis play in development? Why do some animals have it, while others do not?
A new notion
The Heisenberg group started to tackle this question by analyzing cytokinesis in zebrafish and ascidians. Those two animals are often used as model organisms to study the early embryo development in vertebrates to which humans belong.
The scientists blocked cytokinesis in fertilized eggs of these sea dwellers. They showed that surprisingly, in the absence of cytokinesis, the cytoplasm spontaneously self-organized into cell-like compartments. Those compartments resembled the cells found in regular embryos and were even capable of undergoing multiple rounds of cell division. Heisenberg noted that this astonishing finding shifted the belief toward considering self-organization as the core mechanism driving cell division in early embryos.
With the five-year NOMIS grant, Heisenberg aims to dive deeper into this topic and challenge this new hypothesis. “In addition to generous core funding by ISTA, we depend on third-party grants to pursue our basic research projects,” he says. “This grant by the NOMIS Foundation allows us to investigate how cytoplasmic self-organization might be involved in the emergence of multicellular organisms in evolution.”
High-risk research
Self-organization does not occur by magic, nor is there a master sculptor shaping everything. It requires physical forces such as tension or compression. To understand self-organization, an interdisciplinary approach that bridges biology and physics is essential.
Heisenberg’s group will combine experimental and theoretical approaches to determine how cytoplasmic self-organization is mechanistically achieved during early cleavages and how it helps portion the cytoplasm into two daughter cells. To gain a comprehensive understanding, they will further probe cytokinesis during these cleavages as well.
The NOMIS Family
The NOMIS Foundation's vision is to ‘create a spark’ by supporting scientists on high-risk research projects. Like his physicist colleagues Johannes Fink and Georgios Katsaros at ISTA, Heisenberg will now join a worldwide network of dedicated scientists spanning various disciplines on the frontiers of science and humanities.
About joining the NOMIS family, Heisenberg says, “NOMIS supports risky and innovative research that is not typically funded by more traditional funding bodies. Partnering with NOMIS will not only give us the opportunity to pursue this research project but also to become part of the NOMIS Family of grantees with their diverse set of exciting research projects.”
Markus Reinhard, Managing Director of the NOMIS Foundation adds, “We are delighted to welcome the distinguished developmental biologist Carl-Philipp Heisenberg in our NOMIS Community. His research project holds the potential to expand our understanding of developmental biology, offering insights into the mechanisms that shape complex life forms. It is insights-driven basic research like his that we at NOMIS are most thrilled about, and we look forward to his—hopefully exciting—new findings.”
The forces that build us
Curious about the development of an embryo? Mark Belan, the 2023 Journalist in Residence at ISTA, has crafted an animated web story that explores the forces shaping us, delving deeply into Heisenberg's research.
Interactive Scrollytelling article: https://forces.artscistudios.com/