Speaker
Description
Yeast colonies exhibit a wide range of patterns and growth modes, making them a fruitful source of mathematical modelling problems. Our group aims to better understand yeast growth using agent-based, reaction–diffusion, and continuum mechanical models, and collaborates with experimental yeast biologists based in Australia and the UK. Biofilms are a form of growth characterised by communities of cells residing within a self-produced protective viscous matrix. They cause an estimated 80% of all microbial infections and are difficult to remove, giving them particular biomedical importance.
I will discuss our recent work~\cite{Tam2026} that applies an extensional-flow thin-film model to model how agar density affects biofilm growth in lab experiments. The mathematical model contains 5 unknown parameters, requiring multiple experimental measurements (biofilm size, shape, and composition) and numerical optimisation to estimate parameters effectively. Parameter optimisation reveals that higher density agar increases biofilm–substratum adhesion strength, which favours vertical over horizontal expansion.
Bibliography
@article{Tam2026,
title = {Quantifying the Effects of Cell Death and Agar Density on Yeast Colony Biofilms Using an Extensional Flow Mathematical Model},
author = {Tam, A. K. Y. and Netherwood, D. J. and Gardner, J. M. and Zhang, J. and Gourlay, C. W. and Jiranek, V. and Binder, B. J. and Green, J. E. F.},
date = {2026},
journaltitle = {Soft Matter},
doi = {10.1039/D5SM01051A},
}
