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SUMMARY:Active Cell Mechanics - Professor Ulrich Schwarz\, Institute for T
 heoretical Physics and BioQuant\, Heidelberg University\, Germany	
DTSTART:20190208T140000Z
DTEND:20190208T150000Z
UID:TALK117505@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:46601
DESCRIPTION:Biological cells use non-equilibrium processes to actively gen
 erate forces\, movement and growth. Some of these processes can be reconst
 ituted in biomimetic experiments with active soft matter\, nurturing the v
 ision of a synthetic cell built from the bottom-up. In this talk\, I will 
 first discuss how and why kilopascal traction stresses are generated by ad
 herent cells\, and how they can be measured. Surprisingly\, quantitative e
 xperiments such as cell shape analysis\, laser cutting or optogenetic cont
 rol of cell mechanics reveal elastic properties for cellular systems that 
 tend to flow on a molecular scale. I will discuss how these contractile sy
 stems can be mathematically described by continuum mechanics extended by a
 ctive elements. This theoretical framework not only predicts the typical t
 raction stress patterns measured on soft elastic substrates for cells and 
 cell monolayers\, but also explains why cells mechanically communicate in 
 cell monolayers over a typical distance of 170 micrometers.
LOCATION:Department of Engineering - LR4
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