Artificial Tissue Design: A Computational Engineering Approach

Living organisms start their life with a single cell, which divides multiple times to generate a number of cells. At the same time, chemical patterns establish in the cells leading to non-homogeneous mechanical properties of the tissue, ultimately guiding the final shape of functional organs. Motivated by this phenomena in living organisms, we would like to develop a computational framework for designing artificial tissues. On one hand, we will implement a reaction-diffusion model in both two and three dimensions that will simulate any gene expression network. In parallel, to simulate the mechanical deformation of the tissue we will build mathematical models using solid, fluid, and particle mechanics. After successful implementation of both these models, we can make computational tissues that grow and change shape like real ones. 

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