Epithelial sheets can realize a variety of shapes to sculpt the organs and bodies of living organisms during embryonic development

apical

basal

Drosophila germband epithelium seen in cross-sections and 3D reconstructions (Ostvar+, 2025)

apical

basal

Our wok has uncovered novel epithelial cell shapes and
the multi-scale morphodynamics of cell-cell contact networks
underlying early nervous system development in mammals

twisted

non-convexity is a striking and unexpected geometrical feature of neuroepithelial cells
(Ostvar+, 2025)

3D imaging of cell membrane markers to infer the geometry of mouse neuroepithelial cells at different levels of coarse-graining (Ostvar+, 2025)

The rich morphogenetic repertoire and unique material properties of epithelial sheets are linked to the geometry of their building blocks

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Multiscale embryonic tissue morphodynamics