Welcome to UNICIL
UNICIL (UNIty and diversity of MultiCILiary function) is a pioneering project with six leading research groups from across Europe come together to uncover the core biophysical principles of how motile cilia function across different scales – from single cells to entire tissues.
By combining cutting-edge imaging, genetics, cell biology, multiscale physical and computational modelling, this discovery-led project will transform how scientists understand motile ciliary dynamics across diverse organisms. The findings could eventually improve how we diagnose and treat ciliopathies, for example through emerging gene therapies.
This groundbreaking interdisciplinary research promises not only to open new frontiers in basic biology, with direct implications for human health, and reshape how scientists approach some of the most puzzling genetic disorders – and offer hope to thousands affected by cilia-related diseases.
One must try to see through the clutter produced by evolution to the basic mechanisms lying beneath them… what seems to physicists to be a hopelessly complicated process may have been what nature found simplest, because nature could only build on what was already there
Francis Crick