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Cells are the fundamental units of life, but how they organize into organisms as "societies of cells" remains a fundamental gap in our knowledge. Individuals in societies can cooperate or compete with one another, and groups of cells are no different. How are potential conflicts between cells resolved to produce functioning, healthy organisms? In this study, the research team makes use of an extraordinary organism - the planarian worm - to answer this question. Planarians are unusual in that they have a very large numbers of stem cells that can develop into any kind of tissue. This means that they don't have to rely on one another to adopt distinct roles. By discovering how these stem cells cooperate and compete with one another inside individual worms, the project will obtain new insights into the existence of multi-cellular life. And maybe even hints for engineering self-replicating systems, which need to solve the same problems.

• Dr. Jochen Rink

  Max-Planck-Institut für
  Multidisziplinäre Naturwissenschaften
  Abteilung für Gewebedynamik und Regeneration
  Göttingen
  

• Prof. Ashleigh Griffin, Ph.D.

  University of Oxford
  Department of Zoology
  Oxford
  Grossbritannien
  

• Prof. Bo Wang, Ph.D.

  Stanford University
  Department of Bioengineering
  and Developmental Biology
  Stanford, CA
  USA
  

• Phase transitions in mutualistic communities under invasion

• Heterologous reporter expression in the planarian Schmidtea mediterranea through somatic mRNA transfection

• Forecasting unprecedented ecological fluctuations