Reading and writing the morphogenetic code

Living systems are able not just to grow tissues, but to maintain them over time and, in some cases, regenerate them when they are altered by injury or disease. Underlying this ability is the morphogenetic code, which consists of the mechanisms and information structures by which networks of cells represent and dynamically regulate the target morphology of the system.

The Allen Discovery Center for Reading and Writing the Morphogenetic Code at Tufts University was announced in 2016 to read and write the code that controls organ shape in regeneration, growth, and cancer.