Stem cells are key for the development and maintenance of multicellular organisms. Some animals in addition have remarkable regenerative capacities, which also rely on the activation of stem cells. In this research platform we aim to study the regulation of stem cells during development, regeneration and maintenance in a variety of animals with different life history strategies in order to unravel the mechanisms of regulation that lead to the activation of stem cells. We employ modern single cell technologies in combination with functional genomics approaches. We also seek to develop new bioinformatic tools for the analysis of single cell transcriptome data.
