Immune cells such as neutro phils (white blood cells) can navigate to sites of infection. Their direct ed motility is regulated by patterns of activity of intracellular proteins (such as Rac). That activity determines where filamentous actin (F-actin) will assemble and power cell protrusion. Modeling these systems has been one of my interests for some time. A challenge has always been to link spa tial (PDE) models of the relevant proteins to cell shape and motion. Here I will describe two recent projects that greatly benefitted from the Morph eus software made publicly available by the TU Dresden group (Lutz Brusch\ , Jörn Starruß). In (1)\, a theoretical PDE model for Rac and F-actin th at we studied analytically (PhD student Jack Hughes and collaborator Arik Yochelis) was visualized in Morpheus simulations of motile cells to show d ynamic transitions between polar and ruffling cells (MSc student Jupiter A lgorta). In (2)\, optogenetic experiments by Jason Town and Orion Weiner ( UCSF) were modeled and simulated in Morpheus (by Jupiter Algorta) to explo re the hypothesis that Rac promotes its own local inhibitor. Morpheus allo ws us to implement the PDE dynamics on the edge of a cell and to track the protrusion\, motion\, and response to stimuli of that cell.
(1) J. M. Hughes\, S. Modai\, L. Edelstein-Keshet\, A. Yochelis: Travelling wave s and wave pinning (polarity): Switching between random and directional ce ll motility. arXiv:2410.12213\, 2024.
(2) J. Algorta\, A. Fele-Para nj\, J. M. Hughes\, L. Edelstein-Keshet: Modeling and Simulating Single an d Collective Cell Motility. Cold Spring Harbour Perspectives in Biology\, 2024.
Prof. Edelstein-Keshet studied Mathematics at Dalhousie Unive
rsity (Halifax\, Canada) and received her doctorate in Applied Mathematics
from the Weizmann Institute of Science (Rehovot\, Israel) in 1982\, where
she worked with Lee Segel.
Via Brown University (Providence\, USA) an
d Duke University (Durham\, USA)\, she moved to the University of British
Columbia (Vancouver\, Canada) Dept. of Mathematics in 1989.
Her resear
ch focuses on mathematical models of cell motility\, and collective behavi
or. She is the author of a popular interdisciplinary text book „Mathemat
ical Models in Biology“ (SIAM). Prof. Edelstein-Keshet is a former presi
dent of the Society for Mathematical Biology (SMB\, 1995-1997) and Fellow
of SMB and SIAM (2014). She was awarded the Arthur Winfree Prize of SMB (2
021)\, the John von Neumann Prize Lecturer of SIAM (2022) and the CRM-Fiel
ds-PIMS Prize of the Canadian Mathematics institutes (2025).