Speaker: Anne-Florence Bitbol (EPFL)
Date: 23/10/2025
Time: 10:00 CEST
Host: Nora Martin (CRG)
Speaker: Lendert Gelens (KU Leuven)
Date: 25/09/2025
Time: 10:00 CEST
Host: Jordi Garcia-Ojalvo (UPF)
Speaker: Zena Hadjivasiliou (The Francis Crick Institute)
Date: 26/06/2025
Time: 10:00 CEST
Host: Rosa Martinez-Corral (CRG)
Speaker: Alvaro Sanchez (CSIC/University of Salamanca)
Date: 20/02/2025
Time: 10:00 CEST
Host: Rosa Martinez-Corral (CRG)
Microbial communities provide countless ecological services essential for sustaining life on Earth, and they perform a wide array of functions in biotechnology—from food production to biofuel synthesis. The quantitative functions delivered by microbial communities depend on their composition, i.e. the specific genotypes present and their relative abundances. To engineer microbial consortia that optimize these functions, we must establish a predictive, quantitative link between community composition and function. Yet, developing mechanistic mathematical models to achieve this is exceptionally challenging due to the complex network of interactions involved. In this talk, I will explore how concepts from fitness landscape theory in genetics can help overcome these challenges and lead to the creation of predictive, quantitative models of community function that can guide the optimization of synthetic microbial consortia.
If you would like to attend the seminar, please register here.
Speaker: Philip Maini (University of Oxford)
Date: 29/05/2025
Time: 10:00 CEST
Host: James Sharpe (EMBL Barcelona)
Collective cell motion is ubiquitous in biology, occurring in normal development, wound healing and disease (cancer). Over the past decade I have been collaborating with the lab of Paul Kulesa in Kansas on a study of cranial neural crest cell migration in the chick. In this talk, I will review our work and illustrate how a basic hybrid agent-based mathematical model, combined with experimental studies, has led to new insights into this phenomenon. These include understanding the role of (i) environmentally-induced phenotypic switching, (ii) extracellular matrix degrading factors, (iii) DAN-induced cell velocity control, and (iv) Colec12 and Trial as factors confining cells to move along a corridor.
If you would like to attend the seminar, please register here.
Speaker: Stephan Grill (MPI-CBG)
Date: 08/05/2025
Time: 10:00 CEST
Host: James Sharpe (EMBL Barcelona)
Speaker: Hervé Turlier (Collège de France)
Date: 27/03/2025
Time: 10:00 CEST
Host: Alejandro Torres-Sanchez (EMBL Barcelona)
Fluorescence microscopy is a key tool for studying biological systems, yet extracting physical insights from 3D images remains challenging. Meanwhile, tissue models are becoming increasingly sophisticated, but direct integration with imaging data is still limited.
In this talk, I will present our recent efforts to bridge this gap. I will introduce a segmentation and 3D tension inference method that generates detailed mechanical atlases of embryos and tissues from microscopy images. I will then discuss our computational foam-like tissue models, which incorporate viscous dissipation, cell division, and mechanochemical feedback.
Finally, I will showcase a fully differentiable optimization pipeline that links mechanical models to microscopy by generating realistic synthetic images from simulations, paving the way for solving inverse mechanical problems. I will conclude with perspectives on integrating AI with biophysical models to uncover cell behavior in development.
If you would like to attend the seminar, please register here.