25 March 2016
Philip Maini
Wolfson Centre for Mathematical Biology
Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford
The phenomenon of cell populations colonising tissue is common throughout biology, with numerous examples in normal development, regulation and disease. For several years we have been investigating cranial neural crest cell movement and I will present our view of how cells split into "leader" and "follower" phenotypes to respond to cell-induced chemotactic gradients, leading to successful invasion. I will also discuss some work we have done on tumour cell invasion and show that seemingly small differences in assumptions on how environmental heterogeneities influence cell movement can lead to very different population level behaviour.