WFU Physics Colloquium

TITLE: "How does a fly make itself?
I. Dissecting morphogenesis with laser microsurgery
II. Modeling cell-level mechanics"

SPEAKER: Professor Shane Hutson,

TIME: Thursday Nov. 6, 2008 at 4:00 PM

PLACE: George P. Williams, Jr. Lecture Hall, (Olin 101)

During the development of an organism, sheets of epithelial cells dynamically expand, contract and bend. These movements generate organismal form in a process known as morphogenesis -- a process driven by cell-generated forces. The generation, distribution and regulation of these forces have been explored in multiple mathematical and computational models; however, very few attempts have been made to test the validity of these models in vivo. In the Thursday talk, I will focus on experiments -- in particular, our methods for probing morphogenetic force in vivo using laser microsurgery. I'll talk about the ablation process itself (including plasma formation, cavitation and shock wave emission) and the information contained in the subsequent mechanical recoil. In the Friday talk, I will focus on computational modeling. I'll describe two ongoing projects: (1) using cell-level finite-element models to understand the full implications of our laser microsurgery experiments; and (2) modeling the fascinating process of spontaneous cell sorting.

Shane Hutson (BA WFU 1992, MS WFU 1993) will also be giving the Fourth Annual Alumni Colloquium on Friday, Nov. 7, 2008 at 4 PM. This tradition was started by Chandran Sabanayagam (BA-MS WFU 1993) who is currently Professor of Physics at Delaware State University.