Plants as dynamic architecture – looking at living structures from engineering perspectives

Biological structures are different from manmade structures in that they can grow and adapt while maintaining structural integrity. For example, bones remodel depending on the structural demands due to the exercise and weight of the animal. Plants strengthen their stems in response to physical distress, such increasing in size and weight or being bent. Such dynamic structural stabilisation requires constant active sensing and response mechanisms within the biological cells. In this seminar I will highlight findings from my past work to illustrate ways by which plants regulate local growth, to demarcate the stem cell niche, via differential material properties. Furthermore, I will show how dramatically tissue- and cell-level mechanical parameters influence the accumulation dynamics of the phytohormone auxin, the master pattern generator of plant body formation. In my group we are now developing microfluidic devices and inducible cell differentiation systems in order to capture dynamic cellular responses to mechanical stimuli. I will report our on-going progress.