Overview
Can science develop adequate, quantitative theories of living systems, such that experiment and theory work hand-in-glove, like much of modern fundamental physics? This is the question that concerns us: we both apply and develop concepts from statistical and theoretical soft-condensed matter physics, as well as applied mathematics, in order to describe living matter.
The focus spans a range of length-scales, from molecular signalling on a sub-cellular scale, to emergent phenomena at the tissue scale and beyond. We work closely with experimental partners, typically studying systems in which an interplay between mechanics, geometry and information-processing is important.
Publications
Pre-prints:
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S. C. Al-Izzi and R. G. Morris, “Morphodynamics of Active Nematic Fluid Surfaces” (2022) (ArXiv:2204.13930)
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E. Crosato, J. N. Philippson, S. Thutupalli and R. G. Morris, “Founder Effects and Dynamical Demographic Phases due to Decreasing Intrinsic Fluctuations in Growing Populations” (2022) (ArXiv:2202.08394).
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R. E. Spinney, L. K. Lee & R. G. Morris 2022, “Bivalency as a many body problem”, (2022) (ArXiv:2201.07010).
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J. W. P. Brown, R. G. Alford, J. C. Walsh, R. E. Spinney, S. Y. Xu, S. Hertel, J. F. Berengut, L. M. Spenkelink, A. M. van Oijen, T. Böcking, R. G. Morris & L. K. Lee, “Rapid exchange of stably bound protein and DNA cargo on a DNA origami receptor” (2022) (BioRxiv:2022.01.16.476526).
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S. Hertel, R. E. Spinney, S. Y. Xu, T. E. Ouldridge, R. G. Morris & L. K. Lee, “Mechanisms underlying sequence-dependent DNA hybridisation rates in the absence of secondary structure” (2021) (BioRxiv:2021.12.17.473246).
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S. C. Al-Izzi, D. V. Köster and R. G. Morris, “More Power Implies Different Work: ATP-Dependent Actomyosin Remodelling” (2021) (ArXiv:2108.00764).
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R. G. Morris, T. Daffron and M. S. Turner, “Solvated Membrane Nanodiscs: A Probe for the Effects of Gaussian Curvature” (ArXiv:1904.00710).
Peer-reviewed journals:
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S. C. Al-Izzi & R. G. Morris, “Active flows and deformable surfaces in development”, Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology, vol. 120, pp. 44–52 (2021) (published, ArXiv:2103.12264).
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R. G. Morris, S. Budnar, K. Husain and A. S. Yap, “Anillin: the first proofreading-like scaffold” , BioEssays, vol. 42, no. 10 (2020) (published).
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J. Jhawar, R. G. Morris, U. R. Amith-Kumar, M. Danny Raj, T. Rogers, H. Rajendran, and V. Guttal, “Noise-induced schooling of fish” , Nat. Phys. (2020) (published, ArXiv:1903.12132).
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S. Budnar, K. B. Husain, G. A. Gomez, M. Naghibosidat, S. Verma, R. G. Morris, and A. S. Yap, “Anillin Promotes Cell Contractility by Cyclic Resetting of RhoA Residence Kinetics”, Developmental Cell (2019) 49:6 (published, BioRxiv:282756).
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R. G. Morris and M. Rao, “Covariant Active Hydrodynamics of Epithelial Tissue Morphology”, Phys. Rev. E, (2019) 100 022413 (published, ArXiv:1710.09110).
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R. G. Morris, “Signatures of mechanosensitive gating”, Biophys. J., 112(1) (2016). (published, preprint).
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R. G. Morris and M. S. Turner, “Mobility measurements probe conformational changes in membrane proteins due to tension”, Phys. Rev. Lett., 115 198101 (2015). (published, preprint).
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R. G. Morris and T. Rogers, “Growth-induced breaking and un-breaking of ergodicity in fully-connected spin systems”, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 47 342003 (2014). (published, preprint).
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R. G. Morris, “Relaxation and curvature-induced molecular flows within multicomponent membranes”, Phys. Rev. E 89 (6), 062704 (2014). (published, preprint).
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F. Caltagirone, S. Franz, R. G. Morris and L. Zdeborovà, “Dynamics and termination cost of spatially coupled mean-field models”, Phys. Rev. E 89 (1), 012102 (2014). (published, preprint).
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R. G. Morris and M. Barthelemy, “Interdependent networks: the fragility of control”, Sci. Rep. 3, (2013). (published, preprint).
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R. G. Morris and M. Barthelemy, “Transport on coupled spatial networks”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109 (12), 128703 (2012). (published, preprint).
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R. G. Morris and A. J. McKane, “Stability of growing vesicles”, Phys. Rev. E 83 (6), 061151 (2011). (published, preprint).
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R. G. Morris, D. Fanelli and A. J. McKane, “Dynamical description of vesicle growth and shape change”, Phys. Rev. E 82 (3), 031125 (2010). (published, preprint).
Peer reviewed contributions to books:
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J. Jhawar, R. G. Morris, and V. Guttal, “Deriving Mesoscopic Models of Collective Behaviour for Finite Populations”, Handb. Stat. Integr. Popul. Biol. Model. Vol. 40, Part B (Elsevier, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2018), pp. 551–594. (published, preprint).
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R. G. Morris and M. Barthelemy, (2014) “Spatial effects: transport on interdependent networks”, In: G. D'Agostino and A. Scala eds. “Networks of networks: the last frontier of complexity”, Springer, New York, 145-161. (published).
Commentary:
