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Biomechanical excursions : from cell shapes to dragonfly wings
In the last decade, much attention has been paid to the
physical/mechanical aspects of biological phenomena inside/outside
living bodies, owing to the latest technological developments. For
example, it becomes possible to directly measure the forces generated by
cells on specially designed substrates, or to infer forces applied
between cells. We have worked on a coarse-grained model of tissue
mechanics, the "bubbly vertex model", numerically simulating epithelial
tissues. We have also worked on "diversified insect wing margin shapes"
(mainly theoretical), "a quantification of 4D cell flow by using deep
neural network" (mainly theoretical), "behavioural analysis of barnacle
larvae" (experimental), "a relationship between biological structure and
fluid dynamical functions of dragonfly wings" (experimental), and "a
growth model of a plant root system" (mainly theoretical). We intend to
present an excursion into these topics and, upon request, some will be
explored in more details.