Dr. Philip Maini, Professor of Mathematical Biology at the University of Oxford and Director of the Wolfson Centre for Mathematical Biology in the Mathematical Institute will be visiting UNT to give Millican Colloquium Talk on Feb 6 (Monday) from 4:00-5:00 pm in GAB 461. If you would like to visit with Dr. Maini, please contact Dr. Rajeev Azad (Rajeev.Azad@unt.edu).

Modelling collective cell movement

Collective cell movement is a phenomenon that occurs in normal development, wound healing and disease (such as cancer). In many cases, the ability of cell populations to move large distances coherently arises due to a structure of "leaders" and "followers" within the population. I will present two such examples: (i) angiogenesis -- this is the process by which new blood vessels form in response to injury, or in response to a cancerous tumour's demand for more nutrient. We systematically derive a discrete cell-based model for the "snail-trail" phenomenon of blood vessel growth and show that this leads to a novel partial differential equation model. We compare and contrast this model with those in the literature. (ii) neural crest cell invasion - this is the process by which cells move to target locations within the embryo to begin construction of body parts. Through an interdisciplinary research project we show how a hybrid discrete-cell-based mathematical model, and an experimental model, combine to allow us to gain new insights into this phenomenon.