7/24/2014 Meredith Staub
Written by Meredith Staub
“Lewis’ law revisited: The role of anisotropy in size-topology correlations” was originally published in the IOP publication The New Journal of Physics in January 2014.
The article relates to Lewis’ law, which postulates a linear correlation between the area and the number of neighbors of cells in a two-dimensional cellular structure. There has been disagreement about the empirical validity of Lewis’ law; Hilgenfeldt, graduate student Sangwoo Kim, and undergraduate Muyun Cai replicated Lewis’ original experiment and, using extensive statistical analysis on cucumber epidermis cells, were able to completely validate the law.
“This was a great example of undergraduate and graduate research working hand in hand, and of experimental data empowering theoretical development,” Hilgenfeldt said. “The entire process took a little over a year.”
Having previously developed an analytical theory for similar size-topology relations in different systems and tissues (for which the equivalent of Lewis’ law is not linear), in this project Hilgenfeldt’s group decided to tackle Lewis’ law from first principles. Their work in this area will continue to contribute to the field.
“We are currently working on understanding the relation between the anisotropy and the mechanical properties of the tissue,” Hilgenfeldt said.
IOPselect is a special collection of journal articles from the last 12 months that have been chosen by editors for their novelty, significant breakthroughs or substantial advances, and potential impact on future research. IOP Publishing, part of the Institute of Physics, provides more than 70 publications of scientific research.