Welcome to the LANE website. Our highly multidisciplinary team of biologists, bioinformaticians, physicists, computer scientists and mathematicians investigates the developmental and evolutionary mechanisms generating Life’s complexity and diversity (or maybe should I say ‘Life’s Beauty’). We investigate multiple non-classical model species, mainly reptiles and ‘exotic’ mammals, that can inform us on yet unknown biological and physical processes generating this complex and diverse living world.
Central to our reasoning is that a proper understanding of morphogenesis cannot be achieved without integrating the physical constrains acting on the developmental and Darwinian processes. More specifically, we investigate the interactions between physical (mechanics, reaction-diffusion) and biological (cell signalling, proliferation) mechanisms that generate and constrain the variety and complexity of skin appendages (scales, hairs, spines), skin colours (pigmentary and structural), and skin colour patterns in tetrapods (four-limbed vertebrates).
Our research requires integrating data and methods from comparative genomics, molecular developmental genetics, as well as physical experiments, mathematical modelling and numerical simulations.
Use the navigation bar at the top of the page, to explore our research topics (what we do), our scientific approach and animal models (how we do it), our scientific motivation (why we do it), and our team (who does it).
Michel Milinkovitch comments the publication of a mathematical model published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
Superquark, the most popular Italian television magazine of science reports on our research.
Thank you Gregory Loichot for building our new awesome website!
Our discovery of a living cellular automaton is on Swiss and Italian TV