Related papers: Multicellular Feedback Control Strategies in Synth…
This paper gives an overview of the use of control systems engineering in synthetic biology, motivated by applications such as cell therapy and cell fate reprogramming for regenerative medicine. A ubiquitous problem in these and other…
Molecular communication (MC) enables cooperation of spatially dispersed molecular robots through the feedback control mediated by diffusing signal molecules. However, conventional analysis frameworks for the MC channels mostly consider the…
In bacterial populations, cells are able to cooperate in order to yield complex collective functionalities. Interest in population-level cellular behaviour is increasing, due to both our expanding knowledge of the underlying biological…
Microbial consortia offer significant biotechnological advantages over monocultures for bioproduction. However, industrial deployment is hampered by the lack of scalable architectures to ensure stable coexistence between populations.…
A key problem toward the use of microorganisms as bio-factories is reaching and maintaining cellular communities at a desired density and composition so that they can efficiently convert their biomass into useful compounds. Promising…
In its broadest definition, systems biology is the application of a `systems' way of thinking about and doing cell biology. By implication, this also invites us to consider a systems approach in the context of medicine and the treatment of…
Multicellular organisms comprise a diverse collection of stable tissues built from different cell types. It remains unclear how large numbers of interacting cells can precisely coordinate their gene expression during tissue…
Control theory arose from a need to control synthetic systems. From regulating steam engines to tuning radios to devices capable of autonomous movement, it provided a formal mathematical basis for understanding the role of feedback in the…
Reaction-diffusion systems offer a powerful framework for understanding self-organized patterns in biological systems, yet controlling these patterns remains a significant challenge. As a consequence, we present a rigorous framework of…
To maintain renewing epithelial tissues in a healthy, homeostatic state, (stem) cell divisions and differentiation need to be tightly regulated. Mechanisms of homeostatic control often rely on crowding control: cells are able to sense the…
Deciphering the control principles of metabolism and its interaction with other cellular functions is central to biomedicine and biotechnology. Yet, understanding the efficient control of metabolic fluxes remains elusive for large-scale…
Biological systems are governed by coupled interactions between intracellular metabolism and bioreactor operation that span multiple time scales. Constraint-based metabolic models are widely used to describe intracellular metabolism, but…
Associative learning is one of the key mechanisms displayed by living organisms in order to adapt to their changing environments. It was early recognized to be a general trait of complex multicellular organisms but also found in "simpler"…
We review how sensorimotor control is dictated by interacting neural populations, optimal feedback mechanisms, and the biomechanics of bodies. First, we outline the distributed anatomical loops that shuttle sensorimotor signals between…
Overcoming robotics challenges in the real world requires resilient control systems capable of handling a multitude of environments and unforeseen events. Evolutionary optimization using simulations is a promising way to automatically…
Homeostasis is a running theme in biology. Often achieved through feedback regulation strategies, homeostasis allows living cells to control their internal environment as a means for surviving changing and unfavourable environments. While…
Cells coexist together in colonies or as tissues. Their behaviour is controlled by an interplay between intercellular forces and biochemical regulation. We develop a simple model of the cell cycle, the fundamental regulatory network…
The challenge in controlling stochastic systems in which low-probability events can set the system on catastrophic trajectories is to develop a robust ability to respond to such events without significantly compromising the optimality of…
The proper functioning of multicellular organisms requires the robust establishment of precise proportions between distinct cell-types. This developmental differentiation process typically involves intracellular regulatory and stochastic…
Feedback loops between population dynamics of individuals and their ecological environment are ubiquitously found in nature, and have shown profound effects on the resulting eco-evolutionary dynamics. Incorporating linear environmental…