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The importance of molecular-scale forces in sculpting biological form and function has been acknowledged for more than a century. Accounting for forces in biology is a problem that lies at the intersection of soft condensed matter physics,…
Autophagy is an intracellular degradation process that employs complex membrane dynamics to isolate and break down cellular components. However, many unanswered questions remain concerning remodeling of autophagic membranes. Here, we focus…
The vast majority of multi-cellular organisms are anisogamous, meaning that male and female sex cells differ in size. It remains an open question how this asymmetric state evolved, presumably from the symmetric isogamous state where all…
Autophagy is an intracellular degradation process that is mediated by de novo formation of autophagosomes. Autophagosome formation involves dynamic morphological changes; a disk-shaped membrane cisterna grows, bends to become a cup-shaped…
An important question in biology is how the relative size of different organs is kept nearly constant during growth of an animal. This property, called proportionate growth, has received increased attention in recent years. We discuss our…
Branching morphogenesis generates epithelial trees which facilitate gas exchange, filtering, as well as secretion processes with their large surface to volume ratio. In this review, we focus on the developmental mechanisms that control the…
Rod-like bacteria maintain their cylindrical shapes with remarkable precision during growth. However, they are also capable to adapt their shapes to external forces and constraints, for example by growing into narrow or curved confinements.…
The migration of cells is relevant for processes such as morphogenesis, wound healing, and invasion of cancer cells. In order to move, single cells deform cyclically. However, it is not understood how these shape oscillations influence…
Active phenomena which involve force generation and motion play a key role in a number of phenomena in living cells such as cell motility, muscle contraction and the active transport of material and organelles. Here we discuss mechanical…
Several experiments have demonstrated the existence of an electro-mechanical effect in many biological tissues and hydrogels, and its actual influence on growth, migration, and pattern formation. Here, to model these interactions and…
Understanding and manipulating the interactions between foreign bodies and cell membranes during endo- and phagocytosis is of paramount importance, not only for the fate of living cells but also for numerous biomedical applications. This…
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…
Biological growth is often driven by mechanical cues, such as changes in external pressure or tensile loading. Moreover, it is well known that many living tissues actively maintain a preferred level of mechanical internal stress, called the…
Modeling the spontaneous evolution of morphology in natural systems and its preservation by proportionate growth remains a major scientific challenge. Yet, it is conceivable that if the basic mechanisms of growth and the coupled kinetic…
Migratory and tissue resident cells exhibit highly branched morphologies to perform their function and to adapt to the microenvironment. Immune cells, for example, display transient branched shapes while exploring the surrounding tissues.…
We propose a two-scale model to resolve essential features of developmental tissue deformations. The model couples individual cellular behavior to the mechanics at tissue scale. This is realized by a multiphase-field model addressing the…
Many intracellular processes continue to oscillate during the cell cycle. Although it is not well-understood how they are affected by discontinuities in the cellular environment, the general assumption is that oscillations remain robust…
Cell walls define a cell shape in bacteria. They are rigid to resist large internal pressures, but remarkably plastic to adapt to a wide range of external forces and geometric constraints. Currently, it is unknown how bacteria maintain…
During development, epithelial tissues undergo extensive morphogenesis based on coordinated changes of cell shape and position over time. Continuum mechanics describes tissue mechanical state and shape changes in terms of strain and stress.…
We introduce a formalism for the geometry of eukaryotic cells and organisms.Cells are taken to be star-convex with good biological reason. This allows for a convenient description of their extent in space as well as all manner of cell…