#26 · Structural bio & protein design

Parameterized shape models couple morphology to flow and tissue mechanics

The shared thread is explicit parameterization of biological shape, with the parameters linked to a measurable outcome. The dorsal body study reduces fish dorsal geometry to a PCA morphospace and applies ID-DMD reduced-order modeling to CFD results across 15 species. FDA-QC represents planar boundary curves through elastic functional shape data analysis and quasi-conformal mappings to morph and quantify shapes. The differentiable vertex model treats per-cell attributes as tunable variables and uses gradient-based optimization so a laminar tissue mesh reaches a predefined target shape. Distinctive elements are gradient-based inversion of a vertex-based tissue model toward target morphology, and reduced-order coupling of shape variation to hydrodynamic behavior. The studies differ in scale and method, so the thread is partial rather than universal.