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SUMMARY:Active liquid crystals and the origins of cellular locomotion - Ca
 tes\, M (University of Edinburgh)
DTSTART:20130318T140000Z
DTEND:20130318T145000Z
UID:TALK44028@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Mustapha Amrani
DESCRIPTION:I will report theory and simulations of the continuum equation
 s for a droplet of active polar liquid crystal. These equations offers a s
 imple representation of a ``cell extract"\, such a droplet of actomyosin s
 olution\, in which myosin motors moving on actin filaments create internal
  stresses as a result of biological activity. (This system can in turn be 
 viewed as a stripped-down representation of the cytoskeleton which causes 
 locomotion of eukarotic cells.) Actomyosin is an active liquid crystal who
 se polarity describes the mean sense of alignment of actin fibres. In the 
 absence of polymerization and depolymerization processes (`treadmilling') 
 which arise respectively at the plus and minus ends of the filaments\, the
  active dynamics should be unchanged when polarity is reversed. Our result
 s suggest that\, contrary to most literature opinion\, locomotion can aris
 e in the absence of treadmilling\, by spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) 
 of polarity inversion symmetry. \n\n
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Newton Institute
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