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Understanding the mechanisms of interactions within cells, tissues, and organisms is crucial to driving developments across biology and medicine. Mathematical modeling is an essential tool for simulating biological systems and revealing…
Cell deformability is an essential determinant for tissue-scale mechanical nature, such as fluidity and rigidity, and is thus crucial for understanding tissue homeostasis and stable developmental processes. However, numerical simulations…
The organization of cells within tissues plays a vital role in various biological processes, including development and morphogenesis. As a result, understanding how cells self-organize in tissues has been an active area of research. In our…
During development, embryos perform a mesmerizing choreography, which is crucial for the correct shaping, positioning and function of all organs. The cellular properties powering animal morphogenesis have been the focus of much attention.…
Topology transcends boundaries that conventionally delineate physical, biological and engineering sciences. Our ability to mathematically describe topology, combined with our access to precision tracking and manipulation approaches, has…
In vitro cultures of endothelial cells are a widely used model system of the collective behavior of endothelial cells during vasculogenesis and angiogenesis. When seeded in an extracellular matrix, endothelial cells can form blood…
Mathematical models play an increasingly important role in the interpretation of biological experiments. Studies often present a model that generates the observations, connecting hypothesized process to an observed pattern. Such generative…
Life is a complex biological phenomenon represented by numerous chemical, physical and biological processes performed by a biothermodynamic system/cell/organism. Both living organisms and inanimate objects are subject to aging, a biological…
The shapes of cell membranes are largely regulated by membrane associated, curvature active, proteins. We use a numerical model of the membrane with elongated membrane inclusions, recently developed by us, which posses spontaneous…
Plant morphology emerges from cellular growth and structure. The turgor-driven diffuse growth of a cell can be highly anisotropic: significant longitudinally and negligible radially. Such anisotropy is ensured by cellulose microfibrils…
Mechanical metamaterials leverage geometric design to achieve unconventional properties, such as high strength at low density, efficient wave guiding, and complex shape morphing. The ability to control shape changes builds on the complex…
Droplets are essential for spatially controlling biomolecules in cells. To work properly, cells need to control the emergence and morphology of droplets. On the one hand, driven chemical reactions can affect droplets profoundly. For…
Among the main actors of organism development there are morphogens, which are signaling molecules diffusing in the developing organism and acting on cells to produce local responses. Growth is thus determined by the distribution of such…
The evolution of structure in biology is driven by accretion and change. Accretion brings together disparate parts to form bigger wholes. Change provides opportunities for growth and innovation. Here we review patterns and processes that…
Morphogenesis of living systems involves topological shape transformations which are highly unusual in the inanimate world. Here we demonstrate that a droplet of a nematic liquid crystal changes its equilibrium shape from a simply-connected…
Convergent extension of epithelial tissue is a key motif of animal morphogenesis. On a coarse scale, cell motion resembles laminar fluid flow; yet in contrast to a fluid, epithelial cells adhere to each other and maintain the tissue layer…
Microelectronic morphogenesis is the creation and maintenance of complex functional structures by microelectronic information within shape-changing materials. Only recently has in-built information technology begun to be used to reshape…
Morphogenesis of complex body shapes is reproducible despite the noise inherent in the underlying morphogenetic processes. However, how these morphogenetic processes work together to achieve this reproducibility remains unclear. Here, we…
Complex tissue flows in epithelia are driven by intra- and inter-cellular processes that generate, maintain, and coordinate mechanical forces. There has been growing evidence that cell shape anisotropy, manifested as nematic order, plays an…
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…