Presenter(s): Noah Pettinari—Physics
Faculty Mentor(s): Raghuveer Parthasarathy
Session 5: To the Moon and Back—Relativity Matters
Self-propelled organisms were first observed under the microscope over 300 years ago . Since then, great strides have been made in characterizing the mechanisms behind motile behavior in bacteria, but current models relating cellular motility to bulk range expansion have not been rigorously tested . To better characterize the relationship between these micro- and macroscale patterns, our research is focused on the analysis of images collected via light sheet fluorescence microscopy of bacterial cells and macroscopic imaging of range expansion . Preliminary results have suggested disagreements between predicted rates of range expansion and cellular motility . Further data and analysis is needed to confirm these results . These findings may highlight the need for the consideration of spatial structure or the possibility of unknown mechanisms in current models .