Applied Math Seminar

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Topological statistics and defects in biological matter

Speaker: Jorn Dunkel, MIT

Location: TBA

Date: Friday, November 6, 2020, 3:50 p.m.

Synopsis:

Topology enables the robust classification and characterization of complex systems, by focusing on properties that are invariant under continuous deformations. Recent  experiments have shown that topological structures play an important role in organizing various biological functions and behaviors, from signaling in the heart and brain to bacterial swarming and cell death. In the first part of this talk, I will summarize our efforts [1] to characterize and distinguish multi-cellular systems, such as bacterial biofilms and tissues, in terms of their topological architecture, by analyzing neighborhood motif distributions and computing distances between them. In the second part, we will discuss joint experimental and theoretical work that aims to understand the topological defect dynamics in the signaling waves on cell membranes [2].

[1] arXiv:2001.08788
[2] Nature Physics 16: 657, 2020