M. Cristina Marchetti – UC Santa Barbara
Wednesday, October 14, 2026
Zoom opens: 10:30AM EDT
Seminar begins: 10:45AM EDT
Active nematic solids and morphogenesis
Orientational order of elongated cells or muscle fibers is observed ubiquitously in biology and is known to play an important role in the organization of biological tissue. While most previous work has modeled living tissue as active fluids, in many circumstances both cell neighbor exchanges and cell divisions are suppressed and the tissue behaves more like an active solid. A striking example of this is the freshwater polyp Hydra, where topological defects in the muscle fiber orientation have been shown to localize to key features of the body plan. In this talk I will examine the behavior of active nematic solids, where the feedback between alignment, elasticity and biochemical signaling controls shape and structure.