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The internal and external mechanical environment plays an important role in tumorogenesis. As a proxy of an avascular early state tumor, we use multicellular spheroids, a composite material made of cells, extracellular matrix and permeating…
Contractile forces exerted on the surrounding extracellular matrix (ECM) lead to the alignment and stretching of constituent fibers within the vicinity of cells. As a consequence, the matrix reorganizes to form thick bundles of aligned…
Cells crawling through tissues migrate inside a complex fibrous environment called the extracellular matrix (ECM), which provides signals regulating motility. Here we investigate one such well-known pathway, involving mutually antagonistic…
Morphological instabilities of growing tissues that impinge on passive materials are typical of invasive cancers. To explain these instabilities in experiments on breast epithelial spheroids in an extracellular matrix, we develop a…
Biological cells embedded in fibrous matrices have been observed to form inter-cellular bands of dense and aligned fibers, through which they mechanically interact over long distances. Such matrix-mediated cellular interactions have been…
Local cancer invasion of tissue is a complex, multiscale process which plays an essential role in tumour progression. Occurring over many different temporal and spatial scales, the first stage of invasion is the secretion of matrix…
Cancer research has shifted from a purely gene-centric view to a more holistic understanding that recognizes the critical role of the tumour microenvironment, where mechanics and metabolism are key drivers of disease progression. However,…
In this study we investigate computationally tumour-oncolytic virus(OV) interactions that take place within a heterogeneous ExtraCellular Matrix (ECM). The ECM is viewed as a mixture of two constitutive phases, namely a fibre phase and a…
A three-dimensional cell culture called a spheroid serves as a foundational entity in a wide variety of modern tissue engineering applications, including 3D-bioprinting and preclinical drug testing. Lack of oxygen within tissue spheroids…
The inverse geometric approach to the modeling of the growth of circular objects revealing required features, such as the velocity of the growth and fractal behavior of their contours, is presented. It enables to reproduce some of the…
Cellular contractility, migration, and extracellular matrix (ECM) mechanics are critical for a wide range of biological processes including embryonic development, wound healing, tissue morphogenesis, and regeneration. Even though the…
Cells are dynamic systems characterized by temporal variations in biophysical properties such as stiffness and contractility. Recent studies show that the recruitment and release of actin filaments into and out of the cell cortex - a…
Cell shape is linked to cell function. The significance of cell morphodynamics, namely the temporal fluctuation of cell shape, is much less understood. Here we study the morphodynamics of MDA-MB-231 cells in type I collagen extracellular…
The extracellular matrix (ECM) is a highly complex structure through which biochemical and mechanical signals are transmitted. In processes of cell migration, the ECM also acts as a scaffold, providing structural support to cells as well as…
Through mechanical forces, biological cells remodel the surrounding collagen network, generating striking deformation patterns. Tethers-tracts of high densification and fiber alignment-form between cells, thinner bands emanate from cell…
The speed and the versatility of today's computers open up new opportunities to simulate complex biological systems. Here we review a computational approach recently proposed by us to model large tumor cell populations and spheroids, and we…
Cell shape is an important biomarker that is directly linked to cell function. However, cell morphodynamics, namely the temporal fluctuation of cell shape is much less understood. We study the morphodynamics of MDA-MB-231 cells in type I…
The physics of solid tumor growth can be considered at three distinct size scales: the tumor scale, the cell-extracellular matrix (ECM) scale and the sub-cellular scale. In this paper we consider the tumor scale in the interest of…
Tumour invasion is strongly influenced by microenvironment and, among other parameters, chemical stimuli play an important role. An innovative methodology for the quantitative investigation of chemotaxis in vitro by live imaging of…
The shape of biological shells, such as cell nuclei, membranes, and vesicles, often deviates from a perfect sphere due to an interplay of complex interactions with a myriad of molecular structures. In particular, semiflexible biopolymers…