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Created by: Janneke Noorlag

Issue 280: Cell differentiation and tissue architecture are biological processes which play a key role in oncogenesis. This image composition overlaps fluorescent microscopy of a synthetic bacterial colony (right half) and a spatial simulation of its growth-differentiation process (left half). The colony implements an Ising-like genetic network (hence the depicted Hamiltonian) model of cell state differentiation as described in the work of Simpson and collaborators (see Figure 3 here). Overlapping the bacterial colony is an 'organ lattice' network of stem cell niches hosting stem cells differentiating into surrounding tissue. The repetition of these spatial niches across the tissue landscape is modelled as a lattice organ by Keymer and collaborator (see Figure 1 here) and cancer-stem-cell spatial dynamics as the ecology of a competition colonization trade-off model.