Design Space for Cellular Self-Assembly and Dynamics

In natural biological systems, cells organize into tissues through a combination of processes, including cellular signaling , collective migration, contractile activity of cytoskeletal elements and interactions with their surroundings.  In recent decades, advancements in microscopy, genetic engineering, biochemistry, and computational modeling have enabled a more quantitative understanding of these processes.  In this work, we present an integrated computational framework that accounts for various physical mechanisms that influence cellular assembly and predict the final structure starting from an initial configuration.  Specifically, we use this framework to study how cell-cell adhesion, strength and persistence of cellular motility, and the background stiffness  collectively interact to determine the collective self-organization starting from a pseudo-random structure  and modulate their migration behaviour. Altogether, this work leads to a computational framework that allows us to design phase behavior of collective of cells tuning their interaction, motility, and the background medium.