Patterning and sorting
Spatial organisation does not need a blueprint: it can emerge from simple local rules. A computational framework for cell motility showed how leadership, invasion and segregation arise in migrating groups from mechanical interactions alone (Kabla, Journal of the Royal Society Interface 2012). Two cell types can also sort out through differences in motility alone, with no difference in adhesion, in a mechanism close to the models used to study segregation in human populations (Strandkvist et al., Interface Focus 2014, with Tom Duke). A separate modelling study asks how patterns can emerge from lateral activation and inhibition (Willis and Kabla, Journal of the Royal Society Interface 2016).