The groups research interests are: morphogenesis, marine sessile organisms, evolutionary processes, modelling and simulation of developmental regulatory networks and metabolic pathways, modelling and simulation of growth and form, biomechanics. The group is part of the Section Computational Science of the Faculty of Science of the University of Amsterdam. We do research at a range of different levels of organisation (genome-gene regulatory networks-cells-tissue-organism). We work on modelling and analysis of gene regulation in cnidarians (corals and Nematostella vectensis), sponges, yeast and Drosophila. We do research on biomineralisation in corals and sponges (experimental and modelling work). We are working on growth and form of corals and the influence of light and hydrodynamics on the morphological plasticity and calcification in corals. This work is a combination of modelling work, a genetic comparison between different growth forms, phylogenetics, morphometrics of three-dimensional growth forms obtained from CT scans and field work.