Allison Kann

Campus

St. George (downtown)

CSB Appointment

Full

Research Areas

Animal Biology, Cell Biology, Developmental Biology, Evolutionary Biology, Genetics / Genomics, Molecular Biology, Systems Biology

Education

Postdoc - Harvard University, United States, 2027
PhD - Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, United States, 2022
BSc - Christopher Newport University, 2016

Graduate Programs

Cell and Systems Biology

Research Description

Organ formation, or organogenesis, requires a precise cellular choreography. Cells must move, communicate with each other, and interact with their environments to form functional structures. Every animal achieves this once during embryonic development, but animals capable of whole-body regeneration can repeat this process throughout their lives and build entirely new organs after amputation. Our lab uses the invertebrate worm Hofstenia miamia as a model system to study development, repair, and de novo regeneration – all in the same organism. By pairing cell and molecular biology techniques with high-resolution quantitative microscopy, we will address the following questions: (1) How similar or different are the strategies used to build an organ during development versus in whole-body regeneration? What factors determine which strategy is used? (2) How do biochemical cues integrate with biomechanical properties to drive stem cell dynamics during regenerative organogenesis? Can we identify mechanobiological properties that enable or prevent successful regeneration? This work will identify the principles and design rules that underlie organ assembly across biological contexts, generating foundational knowledge that may inform future advances in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering.