Abstract
To survive and to thrive, plants rely on their ability to sense multiple environmental signals, such as gravity or light, and respond to them by growing in a particular direction and changing their shape. Similarly, many cells respond to the stimuli generated by their environment to survive and achieve certain functions. This directed response, called tropism in plants and taxis in animals, relies on similar mechanisms.
In these systems, a stimulus must be transduced down to the cellular level to create the physical deformations leading to shape changes. I will present a general mathematical theory of tropism and taxis based on the general theory of morphoelasticity and dimensional reduction. In this theory, a system integrate multiple stimuli and responds by tissue-level growth and remodelling, thus modifying the organ shape and position with respect to the stimuli. This feedback loop is dynamically updated to understand the response to individual stimuli or the complex behaviours generated by multiple stimuli such as canopy escape or pole wrapping for climbing plants and target guidance for axons in the developing nervous system.
Bio
Shortly after receiving his Ph.D. in mathematical physics from the University of Brussels in 1994, Alain Goriely joined the Department of Mathematics at the University of Arizona where he established a research group within the renowned Program of Applied Mathematics. He joined the University of Oxford as the Chair of Mathematical Modelling in 2010. Currently, he is the director of the Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and of the International Brain mechanics and Trauma Lab. At the scientific level, he is an applied mathematician with broad interests in mathematics, science, and engineering. His research in mathematical methods, nonlinear dynamics, and theoretical mechanics has led him to collaborate closely with scientists from many other disciplines such as engineering, biology, medical sciences, chemistry, and physics. His current research includes the mechanics of biological growth and its applications to plants and physiology; the multiscale modelling of the brain, the design of photovoltaic devices, the mathematical foundations of elasticity; the dynamics of curves, knots, and rods; the design of proteins; the modelling of cancer; and the development of mathematical methods for applied sciences. He is the author of Integrability and Nonintegrability (2011), The mathematics and mechanics of biological Growth (2017), and of Applied Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction (2018).
Host: Professors Nikhil Admal & Martin Ostoja - Starzewski
