SoftBio Theory Seminar: Towards self-growing materials and neuro-mechanical control

18 Aug 2025
Seminars and colloquia
Time
-
Venue
Simpkins Lee Seminar Room
Beecroft Building, Department of Physics, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PU
Speaker(s)

Professor Jörn Dunkel

For more information contact

Abstract

Living matter can self-organize into intricate spatial structures and carry out complex biological functions. A central challenge in theoretical biophysics is to identify models that allow us to predict and control the growth and behavior of multicellular systems. In the first part of this talk, I will show how classical continuum models can be applied to guide the design of self-growing bacterial materials. In the second part, we will explore how spectral representations, combined with multi-scale dynamical systems inference, can be used to predict worm locomotion directly from neural activity.