My research focusses on transcriptome dynamics in early zebrafish embryogenesis. Surprisingly little is known about the spatio-temporal dynamics of the transcriptome and about the variation of the transcriptome between and within individuals. A deeper understanding of this dynamics is important because with it we expect to be able to understand regulatory relationships within the genome-wide system in much more detail; for example, by choosing a sampling frequency tailored to the process under study we expect to be able to de-confound the sometimes massive transcriptional responses seen in experiments sampled at commonly used sampling intervals. And, we hope to gain a better insight in the way living systems achieve robustness; how similar phenotypical endpoints are reached given the variation between these biological systems. Also regarding robustness and transcriptome dynamics we want to acquire a better understanding on the question if transcriptional responses always unfold via the same route or if alternative routes are available and if so, how these different paths depend on genotype and environmental conditions.
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