Currently, I am conducting research towards my PhD in computational science in the group of Prof. P.M.A. Sloot at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. I have studied biology at Utrecht University in Utrecht, The Netherlands, where I specialised in developmental biology and bioinformatics. My main research interest is the study of embryological development using computer models.

One of the central and most difficult problems in developmental biology is the genotype-phenotype mapping: How is the genetic information in the DNA translated into the three-dimensional shape of a living organism? I have looked at this question from several points of view. For my PhD-project, I am modelling the morphogenesis of coral colonies. The morphogenesis of a coral colony may be largely determined by physical constraints. We are investigating how the (species specific) properties of the individual polyps will influence the morphology of the simulated "coral". For my earlier MSc work I took a different approach: In a model of the evolution of embryological development, we have studied how the interplay between genetic regulation and a simple biophysical process drives the morphogenesis of simple multicellular "organisms". In this system, morphogenesis is much more strongly channeled by the genetic regulatory network. After finishing my MSc work, I went to the group of Prof. K. Kaneko at Tokyo University, Japan, to work in a project on isologous diversification: a theory of spontaneous cell differentiation in a system of coupled metabolic networks.

Home page: http://www.science.uva.nl/~roel