时间：2025年9月22日（周一）上午10:00-11:00

Time：10:00-11:00, Monday, September 22, 2025

主持人: 西湖大学交叉科学中心主任，汤超教授

Host: Prof. Chao Tang, Director of Center for Interdisciplinary Studies (CIS), Westlake University

地址：西湖大学云谷校区E10-211

Venue: E10-211, Yungu Campus, Westlake University

讲座语言：英文

Lecture Language: English

Prof. Zhirong Bao（鲍志戎）

Professor

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Sloan Kettering Institute, USA

主讲人/Speaker：

Zhirong Bao is a Member/Professor in the Developmental Biology Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. He received his BS and MS from Jilin University and his PhD from Washington University in St Louis, and conducted his postdoctoral study at the University of Washington. He is interested in developmental systems biology, with the long-term goal to understand gene networks and cell behaviors in vivo and at single-cell resolution. Combining microscopy, computational tool development and genetics, his lab uses C. elegans embryogenesis as a model to study gene networks in lineage differentiation and novel collective cell behaviors in tissue morphogenesis, especially that of brain formation. They also collaborate extensively to broaden the use of in vivo single-cell analysis and their tools to Drosophila, zebrafish, mouse, as well as human development and disease.

讲座摘要/Abstract:

Neuropil is a region in the brain with densely packed processes forming precise circuits and yet with individuality. The structural principles of neuropil organization and the underlying developmental mechanisms remain largely unknown. Exploiting the complete connectome, we examine the structure and formation of the C. elegans brain known as the nerve ring. We found that axons and the synaptic network form strata composed of related behavioral circuits. Through systematic imaging and dynamic modeling, we further elucidated the developmental scheme through which systems-level properties of the nerve ring structure emerge, namely stereotyped axon positioning, stratification and the recently appreciated natural variation. We identified unexpected collective cell behaviors prior to axon outgrowth, i.e. a chain of multicellular rosettes, that leads to spatial organizers at multiple scales. Surprisingly, a model based on the organizers with simple contact-based pioneer-follower affinity, biased random walk of axons, and geometric constraints can account for the three systems-level structural properties, without the often invoked concepts of gradient, repulsion or complex combinatorial relationships. Our findings provide a multi-scale model, from organism to axons, of neuropil formation, and emphasize the concepts of organizers and collective cell behaviors in general tissue morphogenesis.

讲座联系人/Contact:

交叉科学中心，朱子霖，邮箱：zhuzilin@westlake.edu.cn

Center for Interdisciplinary Studies (CIS), Ms. Zilin Zhu, Email: zhuzilin@westlake.edu.cn