Speaker
Description
Collective cell invasion in many biological systems emerges from the complex interplay between individual cell behaviour and environmental heterogeneity, mediated by processes acting across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Cells continuously sense and respond to external cues, such as chemical gradients or physical constraints, while undergoing intrinsic dynamics including proliferation, adaptation, and phenotypic variability \cite{conte2023non, conte2021mathematical}. Understanding how these mechanisms integrate across scales is essential to explain the emergence of coordinated population-level dynamics.
In this talk, we propose a novel multiscale modelling framework that connects cell-level responses with macroscopic descriptions of collective invasion. We investigate how external cues influence movement through taxis mechanisms, and how their interplay with internal processes—including cell growth—may shape large-scale behaviour. Particular emphasis is placed on the coupling between scales, showing how the integration of microscopic and macroscopic dynamics can lead to qualitatively distinct collective behaviours.
The proposed approach is flexible and can be adapted to various biological contexts, providing insight into how multiple processes combine to regulate migration and organization in complex systems.
Bibliography
@article{conte2023non,
title={A non-local kinetic model for cell migration: a study of the interplay between contact guidance and steric hindrance},
author={Conte, Martina and Loy, Nadia},
journal={SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics},
volume={84},
number={3},
pages={S429--S451},
year={2023},
publisher={SIAM}
}
@article{conte2021mathematical,
title={Mathematical modeling of glioma invasion: acid-and vasculature mediated go-or-grow dichotomy and the influence of tissue anisotropy},
author={Conte, Martina and Surulescu, Christina},
journal={Applied Mathematics and Computation},
volume={407},
pages={126305},
year={2021},
publisher={Elsevier}
}
