Dr.ir. E.G. (Lisanne) Rens

Dr.ir. E.G. (Lisanne) Rens

Profile

Simulations

Examples of my multi-cellular simulations Examples of intra-cellular signaling in a moving cell

Biography

I am assistant professor in the mathematical physics group since August 2020. Before that, I was a postdoc at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where I worked with Leah Edelstein-Keshet. Here, I worked on the role of intracellular signaling and forces in cell shape changes and cell migration.

My PhD was obtained in June 2018, from the University of Leiden and my research was performed at CWI Amsterdam under the supervision of Roeland Merks. The title of my thesis was "Multi-scale mathematical biology of cell-extracellular matrix interactions during morphogenesis."

Expertise

My research area is mathematical and computational biology. This research is interdisciplinary, spanning math, biology and physics. I develop models with a specific biological question in mind and apply those to help answer a question and make new predictions.

I am particularly interested in the collective behavior of cells, which is an important phenomenon during the development of an embryo but also occurs throughout our life time in both health and disease (e.g. wound healing, cancer metastasis).

I develop multi-scale computational models. These models contain a broad spectrum of techniques, from agent-based type models, to finite elements and ordinary and partial differential equations, that are all linked together.

I also have expertise in the data analysis of experimental images, such as cell shape and cell tracks.

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Publications

Ancillary activities