Related papers: Geometry, packing, and evolutionary paths to incre…
Soft and biological matter come in a variety of shapes and geometries. When soft surfaces that do not fit into each other due to a mismatch in Gaussian curvatures form an interface, beautiful geometry-induced patterns emerge. In this paper,…
Growth-elasticity is a powerful model framework for understanding complex shape development in soft biological tissues. At each instant, by mapping how continuum building blocks have grown geometrically and how they respond elastically to…
We explain how hierarchical organization of biological systems emerges naturally during evolution, through a transition in the units of individuality. We will show how these transitions are the result of competing selective forces operating…
The evolution of multicellularity was a major transition in the history of life on earth. Conditions under which multicellularity is favored have been studied theoretically and experimentally. But since the construction of a multicellular…
Snowflake growth provides us with a fascinating example of spontaneous pattern formation in nature. Attempts to understand this phenomenon have led to important insights in non-equilibrium dynamics observed in various active scientific…
We study non-equilibrium bacterial colony growth using a geometry-first, time-resolved analysis of morphology. From time-lapse microscopy data, we track the coupled evolution of area, perimeter, and boundary-sensitive shape descriptors…
Biological and social systems are structured at multiple scales, and the incentives of individuals who interact in a group may diverge from the collective incentive of the group as a whole. Mechanisms to resolve this tension are responsible…
Biological diversity has evolved despite the essentially infinite complexity of protein sequence space. We present a hierarchical approach to the efficient searching of this space and quantify the evolutionary potential of our approach with…
A computational theory and model of the ontogeny and development of bilateral symmetry in multicellular organisms is presented. Understanding the origin and evolution of bilateral organisms requires an understanding of how bilateral…
Tuning of active prestress e.g. through activity of molecular motors constitutes a powerful cellular tool to adjust cellular stiffness through nonlinear material properties. Understanding this tool is an important prerequisite for our…
Mechanical interactions among cells in a growing microbial colony can significantly influence the colony's spatial genetic structure and, thus, evolutionary outcomes such as the fates of rare mutations. Here, we computationally investigate…
We investigate the dynamics of a colony of crawling, proliferating cells with a minimal, mechanical cell model. The cells consist of two disks, modelling the cell body and a pseudopod, connected by a finite extensible spring. The cells…
We present a model for cell growth, division and packing under soft constraints that arise from the deformability of the cells as well as of a membrane that encloses them. Our treatment falls within the framework of diffuse interface…
There is significant interest in modelling the mechanics and physics of growth of soft biological systems such as tumors and bacterial biofilms. Solid tumors account for more than 85% of cancer mortality and bacterial biofilms account for a…
Obstructions influence the growth and expansion of bodies in a wide range of settings -- but isolating and understanding their impact can be difficult in complex environments. Here, we study obstructed growth/expansion in a model system…
A new phase field model of microstructural evolution is presented that includes the effects of elastic strain energy. The model's thin interface behavior is investigated by mapping it onto a recent model developed by Echebarria et al (Phys…
Establishing a quantitative connection between the population growth rate and the generation times of single cells is a prerequisite for understanding evolutionary dynamics of microbes. However, existing theories fail to account for the…
Connecting cell behavior to tissue shape and mechanics is a key challenge in the physics of morphogenesis. Cytoskeletal turnover precludes a fixed reference state, and tensions are actively generated independently of strain; so conventional…
Investigating the emergence of a particular cell type is a recurring theme in models of growing cellular populations. The evolution of resistance to therapy is a classic example. Common questions are: when does the cell type first occur,…
Mollusk shells are an ideal model system for understanding the morpho-elastic basis of morphological evolution of invertebrates' exoskeletons. During the formation of the shell, the mantle tissue secretes proteins and minerals that calcify…