Mathematical Models for Quantifying Collective Cell Behaviour

Collective behaviour is critical to a variety of biological and ecological processes, including tumour invasion, wound healing and spreading of invasive species. This thesis investigated mathematical models of collective cell behaviour, with an aim to develop techniques for applying these models to experimental data to obtain quantitative insight from experiments, and to develop novel models that accurately incorporate cellular mechanisms. We determined various appropriate techniques to extract quantitative information about cell movement and cell proliferation, given particular experimental data. We also developed novel mathematical models that accurately describe the average behaviour of cells undergoing birth, death and movement