DrMichalis Barkoulas

I am broadly interested in understanding how biological organisms develop and function in a reproducible manner. All multicellular organisms start their journey as single cells capable of dividing and producing specialised cell types often with astonishing precision. Achieving the right balance between cell division and differentiation through tight spatiotemporal control is critical for life. This coordination is exemplified by stem cells, which divide to expand the stem cell reservoirs and produce new cell types through asymmetric cell division. The robust cellular decision making is particularly remarkable as expression of the underlying genetic factors can be highly stochastic. To tackle this fundamental biology problem, we focus on the epidermal stem cells of Caenorhabditis elegans. This is a highly attractive model because these animals are well known for their remarkable stereotypic development leading to an invariant number of 959 somatic cells, yet these cells form most basic tissues that are also present in complex animals. We use experimental and computational approaches to investigate how much variation is present at the molecular and phenotypic level among genetically identical individuals and what is the basis of the reproducibility of epidermal stem cell patterning in different environments and genetic backgrounds.
 
A common type of biological system perturbation is infection. Epithelial cells are often the first to be infected by microbial pathogens, and pathogens usually exit from these cells to transmit diseases to new hosts. I am interested in understanding how epithelial cells defend themselves against infection. The small nematode C. elegans provides here a powerful whole-animal system in which to examine immunity of epithelial cells. Our current work has focused on oomycetes, a group of eukaryotic pathogens that infect various animals (including humans) and plants, thereby harming natural ecosystems and leading to economic losses and disease. Research on animal pathogenic oomycetes has been hampered by the lack of animal models. Our research aims at dissecting the molecular mechanisms that enable animals to sense and fight infection through cross-tissue coordination.

I am grateful to all funders who have supported our research such as the Wellcome Trust, the European Commission Council, the BBSRC, the Leverhulme Trust, the Royal Society and Imperial College.

If you are interested in joining our international team at any level please get in touch.