Dorsal closure

A direct study of active mechanical processes in biological systems can be done in the example of dorsal closure of the drosophila embryo. Here, instabilities in the acto-myosin dynamics leads to active contraction of a tissue, which closes the dorsal opening in the drosophila embryo. How these processes are controlled is studied in a combination of experiment and modelling in collaboration with the Brunner lab at IMLS.

We model this process using a combination of reaction-diffusion processes describing the biochemistry and finite-element mechanics modelling describing the mechanical feedback between the active process and the deformations. This allows us to study, which processes are necessary for the closure of the tissue.