Chemical and Biological Physics Guest Seminar
Date:
Lecture / Seminar
Time: 11:00
Title: New approaches for studying the
self-organization of biological shape
Location: Gerhard M.J. Schmidt Lecture Hall
Lecturer: Eyal Karzbrun
Organizer: Department of Chemical and Biological Physics
Details: U. California, Santa Barbara
Abstract: Our organs exhibit complex and precise shapes which emerge during embryonic deve ... Read more Our organs exhibit complex and precise shapes which emerge during embryonic development. While biology has focused on a genetic study of organ formation, we have a limited understanding of the mesoscale mechanical forces which shape organs. A central question is how the physical form of an organ self-organizes from the collective activity of its constituents - thousands of fluctuating microscopic biological cells. Establishing a physical framework for understanding organ shape across scales requires a tight interplay between experiment and theory. However, organ development occurs within the embryo, an extraordinarily complex and coupled system with limited experimental access. To address this challenge, we developed a minimal quantitative system to study the dynamics of organ shape formation in a dish. By combining materials science with stem-cell research tools, we recreated the formation of the human neural tube - the first milestone in brain development. Experiments and vertex-model simulations reveal that a wetting transition can explain the complex dynamics of neural tube formation. Our approach paves the way for a predictive understanding of human organ formation in health and disease.Close abstract
