Interactive lab
Cell and Palate Lab
Hands-on models for the craniofacial case. Push on the parameters and watch the structure move, at the scale of a whole palate and at the scale of one cell reading force. The models are schematic, built to make the mechanism clear, not drawn to scale.
🧪Cell & Palate Lab (3D, interactive)The full lab in real 3D: rotate and zoom the palate as its shelves elevate and fuse or cleft, step into the cells and matrix, and run the guided data lab. All five tools in one place. Best on a laptop or desktop.Open →🧬Palate Fusion ExplorerChange the parameters (shelf growth, tongue withdrawal, TGF-beta 3) and watch two palatal shelves elevate, meet, and either fuse or form a cleft. Zoom out for the forces on the surfaces, zoom in for the cells and matrix inside.Open →🔬Cell MechanicsThree modules. A cell grips the matrix with integrins to change shape and crawl. A stiffness slider drives YAP into the nucleus to switch genes on. And a cell remodels the matrix, breaking it down ahead and building a road behind.Open →🧫From Migration to Cleft LipA guided three-step story. Cells migrate together using the machinery every migrating cell shares, cancer included. The tissue then fuses into a lip. And cleft lip is explained as a set of if-then failures.Open →
These share one story: single cells crawl in and remodel the matrix, that tissue moves and fuses into a lip and palate, and when a step fails you get a cleft.