This was originally a question posted here on MathSE. But I'll ask again here to see if I can get some different answers.
I'm looking for current areas of research which apply techniques from differential geometry to biological processes. I'm (scantly) aware of a handful of applications to cell science and microbiology, but I've heard almost nothing of differential geometric methods in say ecology or evolution. Any sort of reference (textbook, paper, researcher, etc) would be appreciated.
Best Answer
Not exactly what you asked, but I would like to leave it here nevertheless, since it is a very beautiful application of differential geometry in cell biology.
The Wilmore energy describes physically the bending energy of a compact and oriented surface embedded (or even immersed) into $\mathbb R^3$. This is used in biology (aka Canham-Helfrich energy) to explain the different shapes of blood cells, since cells are trying to minimize their bending energy. See also this talk.