Banerjee Lab

One of the grand challenges of the 21st century is to understand, control, and re-engineer a living system from its many component parts to reconstitute the unique functions, structures, and material properties that define life. Our lab takes on this challenge by building quantitative models rooted in physics that bring out the design rules sculpting biological form, function, and behaviour across different spatiotemporal scales and organisational levels. Our work is organised around three main themes:

(1) Design principles for building subcellular structures: How does a cell construct its internal structures with precise morphologies and mechanical properties?
(2) Mechanics of growth, form and adaptation: How does a cell allocate its biochemical resources to optimise the fitness for growth, size control and adaptation to changing environments?
(3) Multicellular organisation and decision-making: How do cells in a population communicate, coordinate and cooperate to successfully proliferate, transmit mechanical forces, and repair damages?

Latest Papers

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Surface-to-volume scaling and aspect ratio preservation in rod-shaped bacteria
Ojkic N et al, eLife 8, e47033 (2019)

Tissue fluidity promotes epithelial wound healing
Tetley RJ et al, Nature Physics (2019)

Wound healing coordinates actin architectures to regulate mechanical work
Ajeti V et al, Nature Physics 15, 696 (2019)

Entropy production rate is maximized in non-contractile actomyosin
Seara DS et al, Nature Communications (2018)

Cooperation of dual modes of cell motility promotes epithelial stress relaxation to accelerate wound healing.
Staddon MF et al, PLoS Comput Biol (2018)

Force localization modes in dynamic epithelial colonies
Schaumann EN, Staddon MF et al, Mol Biol Cell (2018)

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