Spatial pattern formation in biology: I. Dermal wound healing. II. Bacterial patterns (Q1389051)

The development of spatial patterns is a central issue in biology: Abundancy of spatial patterns and forms is in remarkable contrast with scarcity of mechanisms which are known to generate these patterns. The present paper discusses two specific biomedical pattern formation problems. The first concerns with dermal wound healing. Mainly, the authors focus on the two aspects of wound healing -- contraction and scar formation. Earlier wound healing models assumed linear viscoelasticity and isotropy while later work (notably, the Ph.D. thesis of the second author) tries to relax limitations of the earlier models. The second problem addressed in the paper is bacterial pattern formation. Mathematically, the discussed models pose challenging problems, analytical and numerical. Additionally, experiments are suggested which might elucidate underlying biological processes.