Background: Microtubules are filaments present in most cells and are responsible for many biological processes vital for sustaining life. The action of microtubules have also been associated with certain cancers.  The are extremely dynamic and encounters between microtubules lead to complex interactions.

Their dynamics and interactions give rise to the ability of microtubules to create ordered structures vital to many cellular processes.   The importance of MT self-organisation has been studied experimentally and their dynamics have been well characterised by a number of authors. However the complex behaviour of MTs makes it hard to understand by observation alone how the different aspects of their dynamics contribute to the formation of ordered structures.

This project will develop a novel model of microtubule dynamics in two-dimensions by extending well-established models of continuum liquid crystals models and incorporating distinctive features of microtubules that current continuum models are unable to account for.

The aims of the project are threefold:
• Create a computer model of microtubules which extends previous studies made with liquid crystals.
• Through further modelling study the relationship between microtubule dynamics and cell geometry in plants.
• Combine the above models with a biomechanical model of tissue growth

(i) Jun F. Allard, Geoffrey O. Wasteneys, and Eric N. Cytrynbaum.  Mechanisms of Self-Organization of Cortical Microtubules in Plants Revealed by Computational Simulations.  Mol Biol Cell. 2010 January 15; 21(2): 278–286.
(ii) Simon H. Tindemans, Bela M. Mulder, Microtubule length distributions in the presence of protein-induced severing, Phys. Rev. E 81, 031910 1-8 (2010).
(iii) Moore, E.D., and G.O. Wasteneys. 2012. Nanospace biophysics. Editorial. Protoplasma. 249 Suppl 1:S1.