April 3–4, 2006

402 Walter Library

Workshop overview

Superposition of the cAMP wave (dark blue) and the cell streams predicted by a model of aggregation in Dictyostelium discoideum. (From Dallon and Othmer [1997])

Cell movement is an essential process at various stages in the life cycle of most organisms. Early development of multicellular organisms involves individual and collective cell movement, leukocytes must migrate toward sites of infection as part of the immune response, and in cancer directed movement is involved in invasion and metastasis. Movement entails force generation within cells and mechanical interactions with their surroundings, and understanding how they are controlled in space and time to produce cell-level movement is a major challenge for both experimentalists and theoreticians.

This workshop brings together faculty from both within the University of Minnesota and outside the university to discuss some of the major issues in cell motility and to encourage broader faculty involvement in this important area of computational biology.

The conference participants represent a wide range of disciplines, and one of the intents of the workshop is to encourage more interaction between these disciplines.