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The slime mould Physarum polycephalum displays adaptive transport dynamics and network formation that have inspired its use as a model of biological computation. We develop a Lagrangian formulation of Physarum's adaptive dynamics on…
Long cell protrusions, which are effectively one-dimensional, are highly dynamic subcellular structures. Length of many such protrusions keep fluctuating about the mean value even in the the steady state. We develop here a stochastic model…
We introduce a model of traveling agents ({\it e.g.} frugivorous animals) who feed on randomly located vegetation patches and disperse their seeds, thus modifying the spatial distribution of resources in the long term. It is assumed that…
Collective cell migration plays a crucial role in numerous biological processes, including tumour growth, wound healing, and the immune response. Often, the migrating population consists of cells with various different phenotypes. This…
The aim of this work is to quantify the spatio-temporal dynamics of flow-driven amoeboid locomotion in small ($\sim$100 $\mu$m) fragments of the true slime mold \phys {\it polycephalum}. In this model organism, cellular contraction drives…
Physarum polycephalum is a single-celled, multi-nucleated slime mold whose body constitutes a network of veins. As it explores its environment, it adapts and optimizes its network to external stimuli. It has been shown to exhibit complex…
The motility of eukaryotic cells is strongly influenced by their environment, with confined cells often developing qualitatively different motility patterns from those migrating on simple two-dimensional substrates. Recent experiments,…
Belgium is amongst few artificial countries, established on purpose, when Dutch and French speaking parts were joined in a single unit. This makes Belgium a particularly interesting testbed for studying bio-inspired techniques for…
A wide spectrum of Peritrichous bacteria undergo considerable physiological changes when they are inoculated onto nutrition-rich surfaces and exhibit a rapid and collective migration denoted as swarming. Thereby, the length of such swarmer…
Cell migration, which is strictly regulated by intracellular and extracellular cues, is crucial for normal physiological processes and the progression of certain diseases. However, there is a lack of an efficient approach to analyze…
We study the dynamics of a \emph{myopic} forager that randomly wanders on a lattice in which each site contains one unit of food. Upon encountering a food-containing site, the forager eats all the food at this site with probability $p<1$;…
Existing studies comparing individual-based models of growing cell populations and their continuum counterparts have mainly focused on homogeneous populations, in which all cells have the same phenotypic characteristics. However,…
The asymmetrical inheritance of plasmid DNA, as well as other cellular components, has been shown to be involved in replicative aging. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, there is an ongoing debate regarding the mechanisms underlying this…
Single-cell trajectory analysis aims to reconstruct the biological developmental processes of cells as they evolve over time, leveraging temporal correlations in gene expression. During cellular development, gene expression patterns…
The evolutionary transition to multicellularity transformed life on earth, allowing for the evolution of large, complex organisms. While multicellularity can be strongly advantageous, its earliest stages bring unique physical challenges.…
During migration cells exhibit a rich variety of seemingly random migration patterns, which makes unraveling the underlying mechanisms that control cell migration a daunting challenge. For efficient migration cells require a mechanism for…
Motile eukaryotic cells display distinct modes of migration that often occur within the same cell type. It remains unclear, however, whether transitions between the migratory modes require changes in external conditions, or whether the…
The amoeboid organism, the plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum, behaves on the basis of spatio-temporal pattern formation by local contraction-oscillators. This biological system can be regarded as a reaction-diffusion system which has…
Growth drives cellular dynamics in dense aggregates including bacterial colonies, developing tissues, and tumors. We investigate the underlying physical principles emerging from the interplay of growth, steric repulsion, and motility in a…
Many natural and industrial processes rely on constrained transport, such as proteins moving through cells, particles confined in nanocomposite materials or gels, individuals in highly dense collec- tives and vehicular traffic conditions.…