Dr. Jan Rozman (FMF): Nematic activity in tissues: collective motion, cell sorting, and avian gastrulation

Active matter uses ambient or stored energy to produce systemic motion. In particular, active nematics consist of elongated, nematically aligning units that either actively generate flows inwards along their long-axis and outwards along their short-axis, or the reverse. Theories of active nematics have been developed to describe, e.g., the motion of kinesin-microtubule mixtures and of bacterial colonies. However, there is now increasing evidence that, at least sometimes, tissues also behave like active nematics. I will present recent work on combining nematic activity with mechanical models of tissue dynamics, focusing on collective cell motion, the role of dissipation, and cell sorting. Lastly, I will discuss how such models can be used to understand a specific biological process: gastrulation in avian embryos, which involves coordinated cell flows on scales much larger than a single cell.
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