Date: 02.12.2022, Time: 15:30h

Location: Kleiner Physik-Hörsaal N 020, Fakultät für Physik
The talk will be streamed online.

Prof. Marino Arroyo Balaguer
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (BarcelonaTech)

The actin cytoskeleton is an adaptive and polymorphic structural network within cells, which performs a number of cellular mechanical functions including their ability to exert forces, to reshape or to move. Prominent architectures include isotropic states, polar spikes or sheets, and dense nematic bundles. However, the physical mechanisms leading to these mesoscale architectures are not well understood. In the first part of the talk, I will discuss a theory and computations to understand the active self-organization of patterns of dense nematic bundles and how they couple to cell shape. The dynamics of the actin cytoskeleton also operate at the supra-cellular level, where they control the rheology of cellular tissues. In the second part of the talk, I will discuss an integrated theory-experiment approach to understand tissue mechanics and dynamics, and how this understanding allows us to direct morphogenesis in vitro.