Physics (Internal)

Biological tissues as mechanical metamaterials

This event is part of the Physics Department Colloquia Series.

In multicellular organisms, properly programmed collective motion is required to form tissues and organs, and this programming breaks down in diseases like cancer. Recent experimental work highlights that some organisms tune the global mechanical properties of a tissue across a fluid-solid transition to allow or prohibit cell motion and control processes such as body axis elongation. In this talk, I will highlight a newly developed framework that suggests the origin of rigidity in tissues is similar to that in mechanical metamaterials, like origami, and different from those in standard materials like glasses or granular matter. I’ll also give some examples of how this rigidity transition impacts development and disease processes in biology.