Mechanics of Life Workshop

May 24, 2022, 8:00 AM → May 26, 2022, 4:50 PM America/New_York

Ingrid Daubechies Auditorium (Flatiron Institute, Center for Computational Biology )

Michael J. Shelley (Center for Computational Biology/New York University ), Saverio Spagnolie (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

The Mechanics of Life Workshop will bring together researchers working in biological soft matter, active suspensions, complex fluids, and fluid-structure interactions to share recent discoveries and new tools, and to foster new scientific relationships and collaborations in our field. From the active metropolis inside each living cell to the slow, alluring motions of the world’s largest organisms, mechanical insight continues to advance our understanding of the living world. 

Tue, May 24

8:30 AM BREAKFAST

1 Insect Flight: Equations, Behavior, and Models

Speaker: Jane Wang (Cornell University )

2 Coarse-grained Theories of Schooling Wings in Fast Flows

Speaker: Anand Oza (New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) )

10:00 AM COFFEE

3 Motor Guidance by Long-Range Communication on the Microtubule Lattice

Speaker: Meredith Betterton (University of Colorado )

4 The Physics of Highly Crosslinked Cytoskeletal Networks

Speaker: Sebastian Fürthauer (Institut of Applied Physics, TU Wien)

5 Turnover and Mechanics of Dendritic Actin Networks

Speaker: Dimitrios Vavylonis (Lehigh University )

12:00 PM LUNCH

6 Nuclear Size Control by Osmotic Forces in S. Pombe

Speaker: Thomas Fai (Brandeis University )

7 From 2D Patterns to 3D Structures in Morphogenesis

Speaker: Stanislav Y. Shvartsman (Center for Computational Biology/Princeton University)

2:00 PM COFFEE

8 Self-Organized Twisters Inside Drosophila Oocytes

Speaker: Reza Farhadifar (Center for Computational Biology)

9 Symmetry-Informed Model Inference for Living Matter

Speaker: Jörn Dunkel (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

10 Methods

Speaker: Michael Shelley (Flatiron)

Wed, May 25

8:30 AM BREAKFAST

11 Interphase Chromatin Undergoes a Local Sol-Gel Transition upon Cell Differentiation

Speaker: Alexandra Zidovska (New York University )

12 Active Hydrodynamics of Interphase Chromatin: From Coherent Motion to Phase Separation

Speaker: David Saintillan (University of California San Diego )

10:00 AM COFFEE

13 Mechanics of the Spindle

Speaker: Daniel Needleman (Harvard University/Center for Computational Biology )

14 Centrosome Movements during Mitosis

Speaker: Sarah Olson (Worcester Polytechnic Institute )

11:30 AM COFFEE

15 Swimming in Complex Fluids

Speaker: Saverio Spagnolie (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

16 Emergent Properties of Flagellar Waveforms in Vscoelastic Fluids

Speaker: Becca Thomases (University of California Davis)

1:00 PM LUNCH

17 Q-tensor Model for Undulatory Swimming in Lyotropic Liquid-Crystalline Polymers

Speaker: Tony Gao (Michigan State University )

18 Passive and Active Particles in a Lattice of Obstacles

Speaker: Jean-Luc Thiffeault (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

3:00 PM COFFEE

19 Transition vs. Cross-Over in Dilute Suspensions of Microswimmers

Speaker: Alexander Morozov (University of Edinburgh )

20 Genes and the Mechanics of Early Cell Shape Change in the Drosophila Embryo

Speaker: Eric Wieschaus (Princeton University )

21 RECEPTION & POSTER SESSION

Speakers: Abby Pekoske Fulton (Worcester Polytechnic Institute ), Adam Lamson (Center for Computational Biology), Alasdair Hastewell (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Alexis Clavijo (New York University ), Brato Chakrabarti (Center for Computational Biology ), Elizabeth Lawson-Keister (Syracuse University ), Ercag Pince (University of Pennsylvania ), Jay Zhang (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Katherine Copenhagen (Princeton University), Kathryn Link (University of California Davis), Laurel Ohm (Princeton University), Lijie Ding (Brown University ), Nicholas Romeo (Massachusetts Institute of Technology ), Nikitas Kanellakopoulos (New York University ), Peter Foster (Brandeis University ), Purvil Jani (Cornell University ), Sadjah Arzash (Syracuse University ), Sebastian Gonzalez la Corte (Princeton University ), Surya Maddu (Center for Computational Biology), Tatyana Gavrilchenko (Center for Computational Biology), Tatyana Gavrilchenko (Center for Computational Biology), Xiaoxuan Zhang (University of Michigan ), XinXin Du (Center for Computational Biology)

7:00 PM DINNER

Thu, May 26

8:30 AM BREAKFAST

22 Active Phases and Phase Transitions Drive Pattern Formation in Bacterial Populations

Speaker: Joshua W. Shaevitz (Princeton University )

23 On Growth and Form of Microbial Colonies

Speaker: Sujit Datta (Princeton University )

10:00 AM COFFEE

24 Inferring Biophysical Mechanisms of Intercellular Interactions

Speaker: Krishna Garikipati (University of Michigan )

25 Connecting Cell Shape with the Spatial Pattern of Exocytosis in Tip-Growing Walled Cells

Speaker: Min Wu (Worcester Polytechnic Institute)

11:30 AM COFFEE

26 Multicellular Coordination of Forces in Collective Cell Migration

Speaker: Jacob Notbohm (Princeton University )

27 Microtubule-Driven Transitions to Swirling Flows

Speaker: David Stein (Center for Computational Biology)

1:00 PM LUNCH

28 Swimming in Complex Flows

Speaker: Paulo Arratia (University of Pennsylvania)

29 From Molecules to Moduli : Thoughts on Bridging Experiment and Theory Together

Speaker: Aparna Baskaran (Brandeis University )

3:00 PM COFFEE

30 A Field Theory for Plant Tropisms

Speaker: Hadrien Oliveri (University of Oxford)

31 Mechanics of Colloidal Membranes

Speaker: Thomas Powers (Brown University )