Andreas Carlson (Department of Mathematics, University of Oslo). Hydrodynamics and adhesion of soft interfaces.

Soft interface dynamics is essential to a wide range of engineering applications and biological systems such as; microfluidics, 3D printing technology, heart development and intercellular adhesion. Since these interfaces operate in liquid environments, their dynamics is intertwined with the fluid flow. I will show some examples of flows within this class of phenomena where the combination of mathematical modeling, numerical simulations and experiments has been used to improve our understanding of the physical mechanisms dominating the dynamics. I will focus on the biological example of immune cell adhesion, critical for pathogen recognition and triggering of an immunological response. Direct comparison between a minimal model for the passive dynamics i.e. fluid flow, elastic membrane, protein kinetics and experiments allow us to quantify the influence of the passive physics in the dynamics. I will discuss how this approach in quantifying passive and active processes is likely applicable beyond cell adhesion phenomena and may be used to understand broader dynamical aspects of soft interfaces.