In Vitro Model of Vertebrate Trunk Development Academic Background The development of the vertebrate trunk is a highly coordinated process involving the generation and organization of multiple cell types. At the core of this process are progenitor cells located in the posterior of the embryo, which differentiate into tissues such as the neural tube...

Academic Background and Problem Statement In recent years, immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have made significant progress in cancer treatment, particularly anti-PD-1 and anti-PD-L1 antibodies, which have become the standard of care for first-line treatment in various cancers. However, despite the notable clinical activity of these therapies in ...

Academic Background Protein self-assembly is a ubiquitous phenomenon in biological systems, performing a wide range of functions from structural support to biochemical regulation. Despite significant progress in protein design in recent years, existing self-assembling protein structures typically rely on strict symmetry, which limits their size and...

Synaptic Basis of Feature Selectivity in Hippocampal Neurons Academic Background A central question in neuroscience is how synaptic plasticity shapes the feature selectivity of neurons in behaving animals. Hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons (CA1PNs) exhibit one of the most striking forms of feature selectivity by forming spatially and contextually s...

Academic Background Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is a severe X-linked recessive disorder characterized by progressive muscle wasting, leading to premature mortality. The cause of DMD is mutations in the gene encoding dystrophin, a protein that, along with other proteins at the muscle cell membrane, forms the Dystrophin-Glycoprotein Complex (DG...