Allyson Sgro Gives Wed@Hariri Talk About Multicellular Decision Making

Yesterday, Allyson Sgro, BU Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Hariri Institute for Computing Junior Faculty Fellow, gave a talk on her research titled “What Happened and What Should I Do Next: Identifying Algorithms Multicellular Decision Making.” This talk is part of the Wed@Hariri Talk Series where Hariri Institute Junior Faculty Fellows share their research with the Hariri Institute and Boston University communities. The talk was held at the BU Life Science & Engineering Building.

In her presentation, she highlighted how cells interact within a group and how collective behavior can influence such things as tissue repair, for example. In this case, tissues repair themselves by contracting together, which is considered a group behavior where one cell can drive the group to aggregation. Another example that she sighted was pacemaker cells. In this instance, there is a single cell that will drive the collective behaviors of others. The Sgro Laboratory is focused on elucidating how cells work together and make group decisions to perform complex behaviors such as assembling into a tissue, forming a biofilm, healing a wound, or developing into different cell types. 

Allyson is a recently appointed Junior Faculty Fellow at the Hariri Institute for Computing. This program recognizes outstanding early-career researchers at Boston University, and to connect them with each other and with the Institute community at large.  For more information about the program, please visit the Junior Faculty Fellow program page.  For a listing of future talks please visit the Wed@Hariri Event Page