Event

Multiscale modelling of bacterial populations

  • Speaker  Dr. Philip Pearce, invited by Dr. Luke Davis

  • Location

    Campus Limpertsberg, Bâtiment des Sciences, BS 3.03

    LU

  • Topic(s)
    Physics & Materials Science

Physics meets Biology Hybrid Seminar, Talk by Dr. Philip Pearce

Abstract:

Bacterial populations often exhibit collective behaviour, for example by forming biofilms or swarms. The formation and organisation of such multicellular communities is mediated by cell growth, division and motility, external forces, and physical and chemical interactions between cells. In this talk, I will demonstrate how mathematical modelling at the levels of individual cells and whole communities reveals the underlying physical principles of bacterial collective behaviour.

About the speaker:

Dr Philip Pearce is a Lecturer in Applied Mathematics at University College London (UCL) and UKRI Future Leaders Fellow. Philip started his academic career at the University of Manchester where he completed a PhD in Applied Mathematics and soon after became an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellow. Between 2016 and 2019 Philip was at MIT and then he spent two years as a Theory Fellow at Harvard Medical School. Currently, Philip uses mathematical modelling, often in close collaboration with experimental biologists, to investigate how molecular and genetic processes determine emergent function in complex biological systems (e.g. in cells, cell populations and/or tissues).