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Abstract: Epithelia constitute many of the principal barriers in metazoan bodies and are also common sites for disease, notably cancer and inflammation. Yet, the incidence of epithelial disease is remarkably low, given their constant exposure to injurious agents. By implication, epithelia must have ways to detect potential disturbances – such as those that lead to apoptosis - and deal with them.

In this talk, I’ll discuss some of our recent efforts to understand how epithelial cells survey their neighbourhood to detect apoptotic cells. Such surveillance involves a hierarchy of mechanisms: mechanotransduction as a first-response that allows epithelia to physically expel apoptotic cells; and inflammatory pathways that are provoked when physical expulsion fails. Conversely, I’ll consider how aberrant tissue mechanics may disrupt these homeostatic processes.

Biography: Alpha Yap is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow. He and his lab seek to understand tissue mechanobiology: how mechanical forces control the behaviour of complex, multicellular tissues in health in disease. Their recent work focuses on characterising the cellular mechanisms that mediate mechanical homeostasis in epithelia, and testing how these support homeostasis against cell death and transformation. They’ve been helped in this endeavour by the generous support of developmental biologists, physicists, engineers and clinicians. Alpha has led international conferences and the Australia and New Zealand Society for Cell Biology; serves as editor for several international journals; was Division Head at the University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience; is a Foreign Associate of EMBO and is a Lifetime Fellow of the American Society for Cell Biology. His spare time is occupied by a quixotic attempt to play the piano.