In this presentation, I will first give a brief introduction on how concepts in soft matter physics, hydrodynamics and statistical physics have been instrumental in understanding how organs form during embryonic development. In particular, I will present few examples of interdisciplinary research at the interface between physics and developmental biology to better understand drosophila fly, zebrafish and mouse morphogenesis. In a second time, I will introduce the experimental system that we use in the laboratory: mouse embryonic organoids.

Embryonic organoids are three-dimensional cell culture systems that spontaneously grow, divide and differentiate in the petri dish. Their remarkable property is their ability to self-organize and to spontaneously form in a few days tiny organs in vitro similarly to what would happen during mouse embryogenesis.

I will present both our recent experimental and theoretical works combining fluorescent microscopy, quantitative image analysis and physical modeling to understand how these organoids spontaneously transform from 3D aggregates of pluripotent stem cells into elongated tissues with an antero-posterior axis and gradients of gene expression and cell differentiation.

(Link to our research group page: https://www.morphotiss.org/)