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Coordinated cellular movements are key processes in tissue morphogenesis. Using a cell-based modeling approach we study the dynamics of epithelial layers lining surfaces with constant and varying curvature. We demonstrate that extrinsic…
Models for confluent biological tissues often describe the network formed by cells as a triple-junction network, similar to foams. However, higher order vertices or multicellular rosettes are prevalent in developmental and {\it in vitro}…
The shapes of epithelial tissues result from a complex interplay of contractile forces in the cytoskeleta of the cells in the tissue, and adhesion forces between them. A host of discrete, cell-based models describe these forces by assigning…
The measurement of cellular traction forces on soft elastic substrates has become a standard tool for many labs working on mechanobiology. Here we review the basic principles and different variants of this approach. In general, the…
We consider steady gravity-driven flow of a thin layer of viscous fluid over a curved substrate. The substrate has topographical variations (`bumps') on a large scale compared to the layer thickness. Using lubrication theory, we find the…
Recent research has shown that motile cells can adapt their mode of propulsion to the mechanical properties of the environment in which they find themselves--crawling in some environments while swimming in others. The latter can involve…
Cell-to-cell variability is inherent to numerous biological processes, including cell migration. Quantifying and characterizing the variability of migrating cells is challenging, as it requires monitoring many cells for long time windows…
The collective migration of epithelial groups of cells plays a central role in processes such as embryo development, wound healing, and cancer invasion. While finite cell clusters are known to collectively migrate in response to external…
The transport of motile entities across modulated energy landscapes plays an important role in a range of phenomena in biology, colloidal science and solid-state physics. Here, an easily implementable strategy that allows for the collective…
We study the dynamics of a particle in a space that is non-differentiable. Non-smooth geometrical objects have an inherently probabilistic nature and, consequently, introduce stochasticity in the motion of a body that lives in their realm.…
Multivalent cargo that can interact with substrates via multiple interaction sites exhibit shared characteristics despite being found in different systems at different length-scales. Here, a general analytical model has been developed that…
Human travelling behaviours are markedly regular, to a large extent, predictable, and mostly driven by biological necessities (\eg sleeping, eating) and social constructs (\eg school schedules, synchronisation of labour). Not surprisingly,…
Random walks of particles on a lattice are a classical paradigm for the microscopic mechanism underlying diffusive processes. In deterministic walks, the role of space and time can be reversed, and the microscopic dynamics can produce quite…
In this paper we study crawling locomotion based on directional frictional interactions, namely, frictional forces that are sensitive to the sign of the sliding velocity. Surface interactions of this type are common in biology, where they…
Many different types of cellular cargos are transported bidirectionally along microtubules by teams of molecular motors. The motion of this cargo-motors system has been experimentally characterized in vivo as processive with rather…
Intracellular cargos which are transported by molecular motors move stochastically along cytoskeleton filaments. In particular for bidirectionally transported cargos it is an open question whether the characteristics of their motion can…
Metastability, characterized by a variability of regimes in time, is a ubiquitous type of neural dynamics. It has been formulated in many different ways in the neuroscience literature, however, which may cause some confusion. In this…
We study long-range interacting systems driven by external stochastic forces that act collectively on all the particles constituting the system. Such a scenario is frequently encountered in the context of plasmas, self-gravitating systems,…
Control of the cytoskeleton and mechanical contacts with the extracellular environment are essential component of motility in eukaryotic cells. In the absence of signals, cells continuously rebuild the cytoskeleton and periodically extend…
We study transport of interacting particles in weakly disordered media. Our one-dimensional system includes (i) disorder: the hopping rate governing the movement of a particle between two neighboring lattice sites is inhomogeneous, and (ii)…