Biomechanics of Cell Structures for Haptic Simulations.

学生将寻求更好地理解适合于细胞的物理建模技术，特别是研究计算机科学和工程技术，这些技术将使我们能够：a)跟踪单个分子和分子群-本质上是一个数据问题；b)寻求智能算法将分子聚集在一起形成细胞器和膜等细胞形式；c)赋予这些团块属性，以表征它们的行为，反映它们的作用。这种方法将允许一个开源的“物理引擎”来计算适当的解决方案。主要目的是探索血栓形成过程中肌肉收缩或血小板聚集等细胞过程的近似物理模型，这些模型可以快速解决，以便在触觉相互作用中实现。主要目标是促进学生对细胞过程的“动手”理解，并允许他们在交互式触觉虚拟现实学习环境中探索“假设”场景。这一领域的一些初步工作是由研究人员完成的，他们对用于牙科腔修复的材料进行了建模，然而这种方法是一种“粒子对总和”，对流体问题很有效，但对细胞物理来说不够快或不够通用。特别感兴趣的是微管与动力蛋白和动力蛋白相互作用的力学建模。动力蛋白和动力蛋白基本上沿着微管“行走”，并提供了几个细胞过程背后的机制，包括肌肉收缩、细胞分裂和蛋白质运输。微管在血小板活动（产生、静止、激活和血栓形成）中也至关重要，并且与了解血栓形成有关。因此，这项研究是由血小板生物学研究小组和雷丁大学触觉网络联合进行的。它具有推进触觉和虚拟现实模拟技术以及推进血小板力学理解的潜力。

The studentship will seek to gain a better understanding of physical modelling techniques appropriate to the cell, and in particular investigate techniques from computer science and engineering that would allow us to:a) track individual molecules and molecule groups - essentially a data problem,b) seek intelligent algorithms to clump molecules together to form cellular forms such as organelles and membranes, andc) give these clumps properties that characterise their actions that reflect their role. This approach would allow an open-source 'physics engines' to compute appropriate solutions.The primary aim is to explore approximate physical models of cellular processes such as muscle contraction or platelet aggregation during thrombosis that can be solved rapidly to allow implementation in a haptic interaction. The primary goal is to facilitate a 'hands on' understanding of the cellular process for students, and to allow them to explore 'what if' scenarios in an interactive haptic virtual reality learning environment. Some initial work in this area was done by the investigators when they modelled the materials used for cavity restoration in dentistry however the method is a 'sum of particle pairs' that works well for fluid problems but is insufficiently fast or general for cellular physics.Of particular interest is the modelling of the mechanics of microtubules interacting with dynein and kinesins proteins. Dynein and kinesin essentially 'walk' along the microtubules and provide the mechanisms behind several cell processes including muscle contraction, cell division and protein transport. Microtubules are also vital in platelet activity (production, quiescence, activation and thrombus formation), and is relevant to understanding blood clot formation. Thus this research studentship is joint between the Platelet Biology Research Group and the University of Reading Haptics network. It has the potential to both advance haptic and virtual reality simulation techniques and to advance understanding of platelet mechanics.