During the 2023–24 academic year, the CMSA will be hosting a seminar on Active Matter, organized by Farzan Vafa. This seminar will take place bi-weekly on Mondays at 12:30 – 1:30 pm (Eastern Time). The meetings will take place in Room G02 at the CMSA, 20 Garden Street, Cambridge MA 02138, and some meetings will take place virtually on Zoom or be held in hybrid formats.
To learn how to attend, please fill out this form, or contact Farzan Vafa (fvafa@cmsa.fas.harvard.edu).
The schedule will be updated as talks are confirmed.
Abstract: Life is a nonequilibrium phenomenon. Metabolism provides a continuous flux of energy that dictates the form and function of many subcellular structures. These subcellular structures are active materials, composed […]
Abstract: Interacting particle models are often employed to gain understanding of the emergence of macroscopic phenomena from microscopic laws of nature. These individual-based models capture fine details, including randomness and […]
Abstract: During development, organisms interact with their natural habitats while undergoing morphological changes, yet we know little about how the interplay between developing systems and their environments impacts animal morphogenesis. Cnidaria, […]
Abstract: Active crystals are highly ordered structures that emerge from the nonequilibrium self-organization of motile objects, and have been widely studied in synthetic and bacterial active matter. In this talk, I […]
Abstract: In this talk I will review our ongoing theoretical and experimental efforts toward deciphering the hydrodynamic behavior of confluent epithelia. The ability of epithelial cells to collectively flow lies at […]
Abstract: Fluids pervade complex systems, ranging from fish schools, to bacterial colonies and nanoparticles in drug delivery. Despite its importance, little is known about the role of fluid mechanics in such […]
Abstract: My lab is interested in the active and adaptive materials that underlie control of cell shape. This has centered around understanding force transmission and sensing within the actin cytoskeleton. I […]
Abstract: The spontaneous emergence of collective flows is a generic property of active fluids and often leads to chaotic flow patterns characterized by swirls, jets, and topological disclinations in their orientation […]
Abstract: The developmental cycle of Myxococcus xanthus involves the coordination of many hundreds of thousands of cells aggregating to form mounds known as fruiting bodies. This aggregation process begins with […]
Abstract: The morphogenesis of branched tissues has been a subject of long-standing debate. Although much is known about the molecular pathways that control cell fate decisions, it remains unclear how […]
Speaker: Guillaume Duclos (Brandeis) Title: Building active nematic and active polar liquids out of biological machines Abstract: Active matter describes out-of-equilibrium materials composed of motile building blocks that convert free energy into mechanical work. The continuous input of energy at the […]
https://youtu.be/KmWQPMivxXw Speaker: Josef Käs, Leipzig University Title: State Diagram of Cancer Cell Unjamming Predicts Metastatic Risk Abstract: Distant metastasis is probably the most lethal hallmark of cancer. Due to a lack […]