Research | Theory of Biological Systems

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:

S. C. Al-Izzi and R. G. Morris, “Morphodynamics of Active Nematic Fluid Surfaces” (2022) (ArXiv:2204.13930)
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).
R. E. Spinney, L. K. Lee & R. G. Morris 2022, “Bivalency as a many body problem”, (2022) (ArXiv:2201.07010).
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).
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).
S. C. Al-Izzi, D. V. Köster and R. G. Morris, “More Power Implies Diﬀerent Work: ATP-Dependent Actomyosin Remodelling” (2021) (ArXiv:2108.00764).
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:

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).
R. G. Morris, S. Budnar, K. Husain and A. S. Yap, “Anillin: the first proofreading-like scaffold” , BioEssays, vol. 42, no. 10 (2020) (published).
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).
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).
R. G. Morris and M. Rao, “Covariant Active Hydrodynamics of Epithelial Tissue Morphology”, Phys. Rev. E, (2019) 100 022413 (published, ArXiv:1710.09110).
R. G. Morris, “Signatures of mechanosensitive gating”, Biophys. J., 112(1) (2016). (published, preprint).
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).
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).
R. G. Morris, “Relaxation and curvature-induced molecular flows within multicomponent membranes”, Phys. Rev. E 89 (6), 062704 (2014). (published, preprint).
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).
R. G. Morris and M. Barthelemy, “Interdependent networks: the fragility of control”, Sci. Rep. 3, (2013). (published, preprint).
R. G. Morris and M. Barthelemy, “Transport on coupled spatial networks”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109 (12), 128703 (2012). (published, preprint).
R. G. Morris and A. J. McKane, “Stability of growing vesicles”, Phys. Rev. E 83 (6), 061151 (2011). (published, preprint).
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:

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).
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:

R. G. Morris and A. S. Yap, “Wetting by Living Tissues”, Nat. Phys. 15:6-7 (2019). (published).