How did life make the leap from single cells to coordinated, multicellular organisms? And how do genetically identical cells still perform a version of that feat every time an embryo begins to take shape?

In a new Perspective paper appearing in the journal Nature Biotechnology, Bren Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz and collaborator Qi Chen of the University of Utah ask one of biology’s oldest questions in a new way. The paper is titled “Decoding the origins of cellular self-organization for engineered biology.”