Professor Eva Adnan Kanso (University of South California): Biophysical mechanisms of cilia oscillations
Motile cilia are micron-scale hair-like protrusions from epithelial cells that beat collectively to transport fluid. Individual cilia are driven into oscillatory motion by dynein molecular motors acting on an intricate structure of microtubule doublets referred to as the central axoneme. On the tissue level, cilia beat in a coordinated way and serve diverse biological functions, from mucociliary clearance in the airways to cerebrospinal fluid transport in the brain ventricles. Yet, the relationship between cilia structure and organization and their biological function remains elusive. Here, I will present a series of models that take into account minimal features of the cilia central axoneme in order to examine the emergence of self-sustained oscillations in individual cilia, and the coordinated beating of neighboring cilia. I will conclude by linking these models to cilia-driven flows and their roles in particle transport and mixing, and I will comment on the implications of these flows to understanding the biophysical mechanisms underlying the interaction of ciliated tissues with microbial partners.