Mechanics in Bacterial Colonies

Computational modelling is often used to explore how large scale features (eg. branching of a bacterial colony) can arise due to interactions between individuals and environment. I continue the trend, using mechanistic interactions in an attempt to understand how an E.coli colony elongates when grown inside agarose gel or on the interface of glass and agar gel. I will talk briefly on the mechanical properties of cells and how I have chosen to simulate them. The successes of the approach so far, limitations of the method, and finally which interactions (eg. Adhesion, friction etc.) appear to be significant factors in determining colony shape in the experimental systems are considered. As well as some new and interesting physics, look forward to lots of pretty videos of simulated colony growth in 2&3D.