SBIDER Calendar
Karsten Kruse (Geneva) "Amoeboid cell migration‒chance and necessity"
Location: OC0.03, Oculus, Main Campus
Immune cells patrol organisms in search of pathogens or antigen presenting cells. Initially not knowing where
these targets are, the best strategy to locate them is to perform a random walk. Indeed, the migration of many
immune cells can be characterised as a persistent random walk. We show that in topographically structured
environments there is an optimal persistence length of the walk minimizing the average search time. We then
show that deterministic spontaneous actin polymerization waves can generate cellular random walks with a
controllable persistence length. Finally, we provide evidence that the migration of dendritic cells employs
spontaneous actin waves.