From balls and springs to colonies and tissues: a theoretical biophysicist’s perspective

Date

Tuesday, May 7, 2024
15:00 - 16:00

Abstract

Biological tissues are the ultimate complex materials, with
many layers of organization, containing both passive and active
components. Due to this underlying complexity, they exhibit emergent
behavior: the tissues are much more than just the sum of their parts. To
understand how this emergent behavior comes about, a tissue-level theory
won’t suffice. Instead, we have to construct tissues from simpler
elements, and study how these simple elements behave collectively. For
the simple elements themselves, we use time-honored systems from
physics: spheres, springs, diffusion, and drag. Combining them, we can
study behavior in a wide range of systems, such as crawling and dividing
cells, developing tissues, and even bacterial colonies that go to war.

Organiser

Computational Soft Matter

Venue

Science Park 904

Room number

B1.25

Category

Group Seminar

Topics

biophysics, computational physics

Speakers

Timon Idema (TU Delft)