Alladi Ramakrishnan Hall

Physics-inspired models for interpreting biological data across length scales: tissues to molecules

Sayantan Dutta

Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Bombay

Living cells and tissues are complex machinery, where biochemical signaling pathways, genetic networks, molecular motors, and cytoskeletal elements orchestrate to drive specific functions. Rapid advancements in microscopy, molecular biology, and genetics have improved the resolution and scale of our understanding of biological processes. Biophysical modeling techniques are often instrumental in obtaining physical insights, and provide predictive power to future experiments. My talk will use the developing fruit fly as an example model system, where the starting single cell divides into multiple cells, which take different identities to make tissues, and ultimately deform into shapes to generate functional organs. In this talk, I will specifically focus on a fluid dynamics model, which demonstrates how actively driven slender fibers (microtubules) hydrodynamically interact with each other and self-organize to generate large scale flows. Finally, I will discuss an algorithm founded on polymer-physics theories to track chromosomal structures within DNA from real-time videos. Taken together, this talk will highlight the vital role of fundamental engineering principles to make the most of cutting-edge experimental data across biological contexts – from molecules to tissues.