Biography
My current work investigates the role of pressure and tissue mechanics in sculpting the embryonic central nervous system, using the chicken embryo as a model system.
I studied Natural Sciences at UCL and earned my PhD at the University of Cambridge with Ben Steventon. During this time I investigated early embryo head-to-tail elongation using the zebrafish embryo as a model system, and found that anterior notochord cell expansion combined with addition of cells to the posterior notochord leads to force generation that facilitates body axis elongation.
Publications
Anterior expansion and posterior addition to the notochord mechanically coordinate zebrafish embryo axis elongation
S.B.P. McLaren and B. Steventon
Development, 2021: https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.199459
The Role of Mitotic Cell-Substrate Adhesion Re-modelling in Animal Cell Division
C. Dix*, H. K. Matthews*, M. Uroz, S. McLaren, L. Wolf, N. Heatley, Z. Win, P. Almada, R. Henriques, M. Boutros, X. Trepat, B. Baum
Developmental Cell, 2018: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.devcel.2018.03.009
