Barral Group, ETH Zurich ^{Research Labs}

Coordination of cytoskeletal events during mitosis during asymmetric cell division, cells as diverse as stem cells and budding yeast make usage of their polarity to segregate cell fate determinants differentially between the two daughter cells. Beyond its medical and developmental importance, this laboratory study this process as a paradigm to study how cells control their spatio-temporal organization and coordinate complex architectural processes with each other. They follow three main directions. First, they investigate how cells coordinate their division and polarity axes during asymmetric cell division. Second, they investigate how cytokinesis is coordinated with the segregation of chromosomes away from the cleavage plane. Finally they study the mechanisms ensuring the asymmetric segregation of age determinants during the production of phenotypically young daughters out of older yeast mother cells.