Event

During development, cells figure out their location and fate through morphogen concentration gradients.  The most commonly accepted mechanism for morphogen gradient formation is diffusion from a local source combined with degradation. Recently, however, there has been growing experimental evidence for an alternative mechanism, based on the direct delivery of morphogens via thin and long cellular protrusions known as cytonemes. In this talk, we will address the effects of various cytoneme transport mechanisms. We then explore the stochasticity from the discrete nature of transport. To deal with the complex nature of the stochastic process, we introduce the strong Markov property and queuing theory.