Abstract
Systems biology focuses on how the biochemical regulations determine the functions of biological systems. Nowadays we are able to test many systems biology hypotheses with synthetic biology, and push the knowledge of biological systems into a new level. Pattern formation and collective motion are important functions for some biological systems, as they help explain the morphogenesis of multicellular organisms. Previous work has shown that patterns can emerge from the regulations of bacterial motion. However, the precise underlying mechanisms remain an open question.
In this seminar, I will present a new pattern formation mechanism for interacting two species, via density-dependent mobility control. During the study, I developed the differential dynamic microscopy (DDM) method to measure the parameters of bacterial motion, which is a novel method making using the auto-correlation function of time-lapse images. As the pattern formation experiments are always done in semi-solid agar plate instead of liquid, I will also present the work investigating how bacterial motion is affected by the polyporous materials, which may be crucial in further theoretical study.
Anyone interested is welcome to attend.