A major challenge in biology is to understand how form and function arise in developing embryos. The complex tissue rearrangements that assemble embryos and organs are directed by patterned gene expression and in turn executed by specialized cell behaviors. Failure to execute these behaviors results in developmental disorders that are the leading cause of infant mortality in the developed world. The Wallingford Lab seeks to understand the mechanisms linking systems-level programs of gene expression and protein function to discrete cell biological processes in developing embryos. We take a multi-tiered approach, combining systems biology and bioinformatics and novel strategies for in vivo imaging, with the ultimate aim of understanding the etiology of human developmental disorders.