Alexander Erlich

Currently, I am a CNRS researcher (chargé de recherche en Section 9) at the Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Physique in Grenoble.

I study how mechanics shapes and regulates living biological systems. My focus is in the modelling of growth in living elastic tissues, where I am particularly interested in growth laws, i.e. feedback laws between growth, mechanical stress, and chemical fields, and their role in setting the final size of an organism. You can read more about my research directions here.

Previously, I did my PhD in non-linear elasticity and growth under the supervision of Alain Goriely and Derek E. Moulton at the University of Oxford. This was followed by a post-doc in fluid mechanics and transport with Oliver E. Jensen and Igor L. Chernyavsky at the University of Manchester. I moved to France to work with Pierre Recho at LiPhy (Grenoble) on cell motility. This was followed by a short stay in Marseille, where I worked as an independent post-doc (CENTURI fellow) as part of a biology lab, collaborating with Thomas Lecuit, Christophe Eloy and Giuseppe Zurlo. My full CV can be found here.

A short video illustrating my work with Oliver E. Jensen and Igor L. Chernyavsky on the human placenta: