PEN DNA toolbox: a versatile tool for biomimetics in reaction-diffusion self-organization
| When |
Nov 24, 2017
from 11:00 to 12:00 |
|---|---|
| Where | Centre Blaise Pascal |
| Attendees |
Anton Zadorin |
| Add event to calendar |
vCal
iCal
|
Pattern formation due to nonlinear interactions is widespread in biology at all scales: from a single cell to large populations of organisms. In physics, these processes are usually modeled by reaction-diffusion (RD) equations. The theory of RD pattern formation has advanced well but its experimental implementations in biological context are lagging behind due to technical difficulties. I will introduce PEN DNA toolbox, a DNA based chemical toolkit that allows to flexibly construct RD systems. I will present then several biomimetic experiments that involve RD mechanisms: a controllable concentration traveling wave, pursue-and-evasion waves in ecology, and an artificial morphogenesis akin to the early development of the fruit fly embryo. Finally, I will elucidate a new potential direction of pattern formation physics: RD systems with nonlinear singular sources. Such systems are as widespread in biology as the pure RD ones, however, they receive much less attention. I will show how PEN DNA toolbox can be used to study these problems and to facilitate the development of the needed but lacking theory to model them.