Within complex biological systems, transport of nutrients, wastes and signalling molecules is influenced by various physical mechanisms, including fluid flow, diffusion and active transport. To understand the general relationships between structure and function in such systems, it is important to characterise the relative importance to transport of the dominant physical processes, as well as the system’s geometry. In recent work, experiments and theory have been used to delineate the effects of geometry, fluid flow, diffusion and active biological processes on transport in various idealised and realistic model systems. This is a rapidly developing field that has many challenging open questions.
This international workshop will bring together experimental and theoretical researchers to investigate the relationship between physics and geometry in diverse systems with complex geometries. We will in particular focus on vascular networks and soft biological tissues, in which fluid flow is the primary mechanism for transport. To promote interdisciplinary communication and collaboration, we also expect to invite research leaders in the fields of porous media and geophysics with relevant methodological expertise. The goal will be to discuss the state-of-the-art techniques used to characterise these different systems, including how the associated physical and biological processes interact across different spatial scales, and how to accurately parameterise multi-scale models. Beside experimental techniques we will discuss the need for advanced simulation methods and their verification and validation. Such techniques are expected to be highly applicable between systems in physics.