Beecroft Building, Department of Physics
Professor L Mahadevan, Harvard
Morphogenesis: geometry, physics and biology
Understanding the emergence of (functional) geometry from genetics is one of the great challenges of biology. Professor L Mahadevan, Harvard, will describe how simple physical principles associated with active growth and flow are beginning to help illuminate multicellular tissue morphogenesis in such instances as laying out the body plan, eg gastrulation, body elongation, and creating functional organs eg guts, brains, and beaks. Combining experiments and theory allows us to link molecular genetics to morphogenesis in a developing organism and construct evolutionary phase diagrams across organisms, while raising new questions in physics and mathematics.
As part of the Lamb Lectures, Professor L Mahadevan is also giving a public lecture on 10 June 2023: The wisdom of the swarm: physics and behaviour and a second technical lecture on 13 June 2023: Morphogramming: geometry, physics and technology