I recently attended the workshop on Collective movement and pattern formation at the ICMS in Edinburgh. The audience ranged from mathematicians of the theorem-proof variety all the way to experimental biologists. A very interesting exercise in communication! It was a really nice venue and I had an adventurous trip back with the sleeper 🚄.

The second preprint from our experimental-theory collaboration between the Aulehla and Erzberger groups at EMBL is now online. Experiments by Anniek Stokkermans and Michael Zhao showed how primary cells from mouse embryos can reform spatial structures after randomization. These structures scale with the overall system size for small systems, but this breaks down for larger systems. We develop a mathematical theory based on nonlocal advection-diffusion equations and obtained parameter estimates for all model parameters from imaging data. We suggest that the scaling we observe is the result of a time-size trade-off, relevant for embryonic development. Find the preprint on bioRxiv.

Recently I was interviewed by Eos magazine. We talked about why there seems to be so much symmetry and regularity in nature, and how mathematics can be used to describe and understand it. The podcast (in Dutch) can be found here and on your favorite podcast platorm.

The first preprint from my postdoctoral work, in collaboration with Michael Zhao, Anna Erzberger and Alexander Aulehla is now out! In it, we use nonlocal advection-diffusion models to study aggregation-based patterning. In particular, we ask how the size of a confining domain determines patterning dynamics. We find that whereas the long-time attracting state is always the same, the transient dynamics are highly variable dependent on the domain size. We also did some fun mathematics and predict the outcome of an exciting set of experiments by Michael. Find the preprint on arXiv!

I recently attended the Conference on Complex Systems in Siena. It's always a pleasure to interact with the complex systems community; many of the conference's topics transport me back to my studies in complex systems science. After my Master's in complex systems I focused more exclusively on biological systems, which is why it's fun and a bit nostalgic to listen again to talks on network science, game theory, dynamics of city growth and so on. On the last day I presented a talk on our work on pattern formation in developmental biology.

Our paper on the temperature scaling of the embryonic cell cycle is now published. I'm glad to see it out: it was a work of many years, with the first experiments (not by me, to be clear) dating from 10 years ago. Thanks to the Ferrell, Yang and Gelens labs for bringing this work to an end together. Find the paper here.

Hot or cold: it matters to us, but also to the dividing egg cell. Over a wide range of temperatures, the hotter it is, the faster the cell divisions go. However, too hot, or too cold, and the cycles stop. In this work, we set out to understand how the scaling of cell cycle duration with temperature originates in the protein interaction network that drives the cycle forward. This was a collaboration with the labs of Jim Ferrell and Qiong Yang. Find the preprint on biorxiv!

After three years, I say goodbye to Heidelberg. My postdoc at EMBL comes to an end but the project and collaborations will go on. It was a very inspiring time and I will be happy to visit again once in a while!

I am now starting a new position at the Université Libre de Bruxelles with Geneviève Dupont in the Unit of Theoretical Chronobiology. I will be working as an FNRS-funded postdoc (chargé de recherches), continuing my research on pattern formation in developmental biology.

On September 16-17, I attended the Physics of Living Matter conference organized by the Turing Centre for Living Systems in Marseille. The great view from the conference venue combined with many cool talks led to a very nice conference.

I attended Dynamics Days Europe 2024 in Bremen. As always, this conference was a stimulating mix of topics ranging from billiards (the mathematical kind) to climate dynamics and vegetation pattern formation. On Monday I presented our current work on pattern formation in multicellular systems on bounded domains.