Mathematics

Most of the talk will be an introduction to (second) bounded cohomology of a discrete group. I will explain classical constructions of bounded cocycles and recent results (joint with Bromberg and Fujiwara) regarding mapping class groups and a construction of bounded cocycles with coefficients in an arbitrary unitary representation.

Reaction diffusion patterns

Positional information and gradients

Spindle Assembly checkpoint

The diversity of form in living beings led Darwin to state that it is "enough to drive the sanest man mad". How can we describe this variety? How can we predict it? Motivated by biological observations on different scales from molecules to tissues, I will show how a combination of biological and physical experiments, mathematical models and simple computations allow us to begin to unravel the physical basis for morphogenesis.