Searching for physical principles of morphogenesis

In morphogenesis, biology uses physics to sculpt organs. Understanding this fascinating process requires interdisciplinary collaboration. We highlight recent work in the ‘physics of development’, with a focus on the interplay between quantitative experiments and mathematical theory. We argue that the role of theory in developmental biology lies in identifying and describing dynamical mechanisms – from the processing of positional information to mechanical pattern formation – independently of their molecular implementation. This level of abstraction provides a structured approach to embrace developmental complexity, but can propose experimental tests to verify its key tenets. We conclude with a sketch of future research perspectives in emerging synthetic morphogenesis systems, which may serve as a platform to distill principles of developmental self-organization.