These are the slides from my sound bite at the 53rd New England Complex Fluids Workgroup at Harvard University.

1. Mapping Physiological Heterogeneities
in Biofilms
Naveen Sinha
J Wilking, A Seminara, D Weitz, and M Brenner
Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

3. Despite being genetically identical,
cells differentiate into different types.
Lopez 2010

4. We can use fluorescent reporters to visually
identify different cell types.
Lopez 2010

5. Can we quantitatively describe when and where
cell types become active?
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6. Can the locations and timing of cell types
be explained by only nutrients?
Lopez 2010

7. …or are chemical signals also needed to explain
the patterns that form?
Lopez 2010

8. We can azimuthally average the intensity to
simplify to one dimension.
Intensity
Radial distance

9. Each image is transformed into a two
dimensional plot…
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CFP (matrix)
R R R R

10. Each image is transformed into a two
dimensional plot…
Matrix production Spore production
radius ( m) radius ( m)

11. Are the peaks in gene expression levels
correlated with the nutrient concentrations?
CFP
(matrix)
R R R R
8 hours 16 hours 24 hours 32 hours
Agnese Seminara