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Speaker: Brian Camley, Department of Biophysics, Johns Hopkins University
Title: Modeling cell motility - shape, polarity, and the cytoskeleton

November 19, 2021, 10:00 am – 11:00 am Virtual MS Teams Link.

Abstract:

Crawling eukaryotic cells are soft matter driven out of equilibrium by active forces - and their physical properties also strongly constrain cell function. I will present two stories from recent work from my group, one on cell polarity, and one on cytoskeletal dynamics and active gels. First, I will discuss the group's recent work on how reaction-diffusion processes on the cell's surface can become sensitive to cell shape. This shape sensing can lead to surprising new behaviors, like single cells developing a spontaneous circular motion, but can be disrupted by membrane roughness. Secondly, I will discuss the statistics of extreme events in cytoskeletal dynamics. Recent experimental work suggests that tracers attached to the cell's cortex undergo diffusion with rare large jumps - diffusion with heavy tails. I will show how heavy tails arise naturally from a classical theory of actively-driven gels, and how this depends on the mechanics and geometry of the cortex.

  • Imani Davis
  • Arianna Rodriguez
  • John Thamert

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