A Short History of the Immersed Boundary Method
Boyce Griffith, UNC


Abstract: 
From the writhing and coiling of DNA in nucleoplasm, to the beating of cilia and flagella and the projection of lamellipodia and bleb-like protrusions by motile cells, to the flow of blood in the heart and throughout the circulation, to swimming fish and flying birds and insects, to the dispersal of seeds and pollen by the wind, fluid-structure interaction (FSI) is ubiquitous in biology and occurs across a broad range of spatial scales.
The immersed boundary (IB) method is both a mathematical framework and a numerical method for simulating FSI that was developed by Peskin to study the fluid dynamics of heart valves. Since its introduction, the IB
method has been extended and deployed in a wide range of applications, both in biofluid dynamics and in other systems in which fluid flows interact with immersed bodies. This talk will sketch the history of 
development of the IB method as well as its many applications, focusing on work by Peskin and his students and co-workers at the Courant Institute. Necessary biological background will be introduced as needed,
and animations of three-dimensional IB models of the heart and other biological systems will be shown.