Millican Colloquium: Modelling collective cell movement--Philip Maini (Oxford) | Department of Mathematics

Millican Colloquium: Modelling collective cell movement--Philip Maini (Oxford)

Event Information
Event Location: 
GAB 461 (Refreshments at 3:30 in 472)
Event Date: 
Monday, February 6, 2017 - 4:00pm

Collective cell movement is a phenomenon that occurs in normal development, wound healing and disease (such as cancer). In many cases, the ability of cell populations to move large distances coherently arises due to a structure of "leaders" and "followers" within the population. I will present two such examples: (i) angiogenesis -- this the process by which new blood vessels form in response to injury, or in response to a cancerous tumour's demand for more nutrient. We systematically derive a discrete cell-based model for the "snail-trail" phenomenon of blood vessel growth and show that this leads to a novel partial differential equation model. We compare and constrast this model with those in the literature. (ii) neural crest cell invasion - this is the process by which cells move to target locations within the embryo to begin construction of body parts. Through an interdisciplinary research project we show how a hybrid discrete-cell-based mathematical model, and an experimental model, combine to allow us to gain new insights into this phenomenon.