Séminaire Ecobio - Pierre Galipot (Ecobio)

Research in morphogenesis is attempting to answer one of oldest questions in Biology: how do organisms acquire their shapes? Although great researchers from all specialities - biology, mathematics, physics - have tackled the subject, we must humbly admit that the hardest work remains to be done. After giving definitions to the words of morphogenesis (shape, pattern, form...), we'll try to understand why most of the ontogeny of biological shapes and patterns still resists a fully satisfactory understanding.
My aim is to propose a dual organization of i) morphogenetic shapes and processes, by creating a classification and a language, and ii) the morphogenetic community itself, which is currently a network with low connectivity. Putting words to processes in order to bring them into existence, creating the most useful categories possible, bringing together distant organisms (and research teams) by highlighting evolutionary convergences - these are some of the themes explored by this project, which aims to be collegial, and which will start at the “Morphogenesis” session of the Euro-Evo-Devo congress to be held in Helsinki at the end of June.
During this Friday seminar, I'll be presenting the ideas I have developed during this year as an ATER here at Ecobio, using the widest possible range of examples to cover as much biodiversity and as many themes as possible, since the study of biological forms goes far beyond morphogenesis, to touch on questions of Biodiversity, Evolution and Ecology.