In early development, regulation of transcription results in precisely positioned and highly reproducible expression patterns that specify cellular identities. How transcription, a fundamentally noisy molecular process, is regulated to achieve reliable embryonic patterning remains unclear. In particular, it is unknown how gene-specific regulation mechanisms affect kinetic rates of transcription, and whether there are common, global features that govern these rates across a genetic network. Quantitative measurements of nascent transcriptional activity in both living and fixed tissues are key in order to understand the underlying transcription kinetics and to make progress with these fundamental questions. The current project aims at constructing realistic minimalist models of transcription for different experimental and developmental contexts, using spatiotemporal gene expression activity data obtained from microscopic imaging of live biological tissues.