Lorentz workshop on "Simulating tissue dynamics with cellular Potts models"

Just over 30 years ago, the cellular Potts model (CPM) was introduced to explain experimental observations of spontaneous cell sorting in embryonic tissue cultures. In the years since, the CPM evolved into a powerful model framework for simulating a wide range of physical and biological processes – from foam physics to tissue development, cancer growth, angiogenesis, plant development, evolution, immune responses, and cell migration. Having just celebrated the 30th birthday of the CPM, now is a great time to look back on the progress made, (re-)evaluate the major hurdles in the field and lay out a roadmap for the next 30 years of CPM research.

This workshop will bring together a broad CPM community ranging from end-users (including computational and experimental biologists) to researchers tackling the fundamentals (mathematicians, computational physicists), as well developers of software tools. The workshop will also reunite the original developers of the CPM, who can provide a unique view on the history of this simple yet powerful modelling framework.