Lecture: Mathematical modeling of embryo axis elongation

Lecturer: Michèle Romanos
Host: Prof. M. Burger

Abstract: During embryonic development thousands of cells self-organized to form the tissues and future organs. Multiple biological phenomena co-occur to form the antero-posterior axis of the vertebrate embryo, such as cell proliferation, cell adhesion, and cell migration. We will first present a macroscopic model that describes the evolution of the densities of the tissues involved. This model consists in a system of two PDEs featuring cross-diffusion terms that reproduce the immiscibility of the tissues. This model is explored through numerical simulations, and an incompressible (Hele-Shaw type) limit is performed.
We will then expose a microscopic model that depicts elongation on a cellular level.