Unraveling the dynamics of living systems: what can noisy trajectories teach us?

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• Chase Broedersz (LMU Munich)
• Tuesday 19 February 2019, 13:00-14:00
• MR11, CMS.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Professor Mike Cates.

The non-equilibrium dynamics of living systems manifests over a broad range of scales: from the power strokes of a molecular motor, to cytoplasmic fluctuations and beating flagella, all the way to migrating cells. By observing the dynamics of such systems, we obtain stochastic trajectories. What do these noisy trajectories teach us about the underlying physics of the system?

In the first part, I will discuss how to extract information from steady-state fluctuations in active biological assemblies. Using a simple model, I will argue that the scaling behaviour of non-equilibrium measures can reveal physical properties of systems architecture and the internal driving. In the second part of this talk, we consider trajectories of whole cells to unravel the features of their dynamics. Specifically, we study the stochastic dynamics of cells migrating across a physical obstacle in a confining ‘two-state’ micropattern. Using single-cell trajectories, we infer an equation of cell motion that decomposes the dynamics into deterministic and stochastic contributions. This data-driven approach reveals that such confined cells exhibit intricate non-linear dynamics.

This talk is part of the DAMTP Statistical Physics and Soft Matter Seminar series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• All CMS events
• DAMTP Statistical Physics and Soft Matter Seminar
• MR11, CMS
• Soft Matter
• bld31

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