“Rigidity and Fluidity in Biological Tissue”

The coordinated migration of groups of cells underlies many biological processes, including embryo development, wound healing and cancer metastasis. In many of these situations, tissues are able to tune themselves between liquid-like states, where cells flow collectively as in a liquid, and solid-like states that can support shear stresses. In this talk I will describe mesoscopic models of cell assemblies inspired by active matter physics to examine the roles of cell motility, cell crowding and the interplay of contractility and adhesion in controlling the rheological state of biological tissue.