Member

Yoshihiro Morishita

  • PI
RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research
Team Leader
Research Areas
Mathematical engineering, Quantitative/developmental biology
Keywords
Tissue deformation, collective cell motion, mechanosensation, 4D imaging, mathematical analysis

Related Outline

Developmental phenomena are a multiscale system consisting of phenomena at different spatial scales, including molecules, cells, and tissues. It is also a multiphysics system, involving the transmission and decoding of spatiotemporal information through molecualr networks, sensing and responding to internal tissue stresses, and the resulting geometric tissue deformations. Through both theoretical and experimental research, we aim to quantitatively understand the design principles of organ morphogenesis.

Career

Yoshihiro Morishita received his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Frontier Sciences. From 2005 to 2007, he served as Project Assistant Professor in the Kyushu University Department of Biology. From 2007 to 2011, he served both as assistant professor in the Theoretical Biological Laboratory at Kyushu University and as a researcher funded under several JST programs. He was named Research Unit Leader at the RIKEN CDB in 2012, and appointed Team Leader at the BDR in 2018.

Representative Achievements

  • Cell disorientation by loss of SHH-dependent mechanosensation causes cyclopia
    D. Ohtsuka, N. Kida, S.-W. Lee, N. Kawahira and Y. Morishita
    Science Advances, 8, eabn2330 (2022)
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abn2330
  • Quantitative Analysis of 3D Tissue Deformation Reveals Key Cellular Mechanism Associated with Initial Heart Looping
    N. Kawahira, D. Ohtsuka, N. Kida, K. Hironaka, and Y. Morishita
    Cell Reports, 30, 3889-3903 (2020)
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2020.02.071
  • Continuum mechanical modeling of developing epithelial tissues with anisotropic surface growth”, Finite Elements in Analysis and Design
    Kida, N. and Morishita, Y
    Finite Elements in Analysis and Design, 144:49-60 (2018)
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.finel.2018.03.001
  • Reconstructing 3D deformation dynamics for curved epithelial sheet morphogenesis from positional data of sparsely-labeled cells
    Y. Morishita, K. Hironaka, S.-W. Lee, T. Jin, D. Ohtsuka
    Nature Communications, 8,15 (2017)
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-00023-7
  • Quantitative analysis of tissue deformation dynamics reveals three characteristic growth modes and globally-aligned anisotropic tissue deformation during chick limb development
    Y. Morishita, A. Kuroiwa, T. Suzuki
    Development, 142: 1672-1683 (2015)
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.109728
  • Coding design of positional information for robust morphogenesis
    Y. Morishita, Y. Iwasa
    Biophysical Journal, 101: 2324-2335, (2011)
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2011.09.048