Regensburg 2025 – scientific programme
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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik
DY 7: Active Matter II (joint session BP/CPP/DY)
DY 7.1: Talk
Monday, March 17, 2025, 15:00–15:15, H37
Emerging cellular dynamics from turbulent flows steered by active filaments — Mehrana Nejad1, 4, Julia Yeomans2, and •Sumesh Thampi2, 3 — 1Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 — 2The Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK — 3Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Chennai, India 600036 — 4School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Describing the mechanics of cell collectives and tissues within the framework of active matter, without resorting to the details of biology is an exciting area. We develop a continuum theory to describe the dynamics of cellular collectives, discerning the cellular force-generating active filaments from cells shape. The theory shows that active flows and straining part of the active turbulence can elongate isotropic cells, which form nematic domains. This is important as cell morphology is not only an indicator of diseases but it can affect the nucleus morphology, gene expression and other biochemical processes inside the cells. Our theory highlights the importance of distinguishing the roles of active filaments from cell shape and explains outstanding experimental observations such as the origin of cell-filament alignment patches. Further, we reconcile how the contractile forces generated by the cytoskeletal network makes the cells to exhibit flow behaviours similar to that of extensile active systems. Revealing the crucial role of activity and rheology to describe the dynamics of cellular layers, our study is in consonance with a number of experimental observations.
Keywords: Cellular layers; Active Nematics; Topological Defects; Contractile Activity; Active Turbulence