Discovery Series with Dr. Jay Shendure

In this talk, Dr. Shendure will describe our ongoing efforts to develop and apply new technologies aimed at reconstructing the entirety of mouse embryonic development at single cell resolution. A first approach that he is pursuing involves single cell profiling of whole embryos at successive timepoints, resulting in “snapshots” that must be pieced together analogous to a timelapse movie. A complementary approach that Dr. Shendure is also pursuing involves time-resolved molecular recording, essentially leveraging DNA as a substrate to write information that informs the reconstruction of cell lineage and other molecular events as they transpired over the course of a single embryo's development. Under these two strategies, Dr. Shendure will discuss progress and challenges towards the long-term dream of comprehensively modeling the entirety of mouse prenatal development, from a single cell zygote to a free-living pup.