Biological Physics
Time-lapse microscopy imaging provides direct access to the dynamics of soft and living systems. At mesoscopic scales, such microscopy experiments reveal intrinsic fluctuations, which may have both thermal and non-equilibrium origins. These…
Many biological functions rely on the reshaping of cell membranes, in particular into nanotubes, which are covered in vivo by dynamic actin networks. Nanotubes are subject to thermal fluctuations, but the effect of these on cell functions…
Functionality of living cells is inherently linked to subunits with dimensions on the nanoscale. In case of osteoblasts the cell surface plays a particularly important role for adhesion and spreading which are crucial properties with regard…
Muscles are biological actuators extensively studied in the frame of Hill's classic empirical model as isolated biomechanical entities, which hardly applies to a living organism subjected to physiological and environmental constraints. Here…
In systems as diverse as migrating mammals to road traffic, crowding acts to inhibit efficient collective movement. Bacteria, however, are observed to move in very dense groups containing billions of individuals without causing the gridlock…
A single solid tumor, composed of nearly identical cells, exhibits heterogeneous dynamics. Cells dynamics in the core is glass-like whereas those in the periphery undergo diffusive or super-diffusive behavior. Quantification of…
We build a simulation platform for Airy beam photoacoustic microscopy based on K-Wave simulation toolbox in MATLAB. The sample was located in the middle of z direction in the environment. The propagation of Airy beam irradiated on the…
Shapes of biological membranes are dynamically regulated in living cells. Although membrane shape deformation by proteins at thermal equilibrium has been extensively studied, nonequilibrium dynamics have been much less explored. Recently,…
The essential biological processes that sustain life are catalyzed by protein nano-engines, which maintain living systems in far-from-equilibrium ordered states. To investigate energetic processes in proteins, we have analyzed the system of…
Beating flagella exhibit a variety of synchronization modes. This synchrony has long been attributed to hydrodynamic coupling between the flagella. However, recent work with flagellated algae indicates that a mechanism internal to the cell,…
Animal cells form contractile structures to promote various functions, from cell motility to cell division. Force generation in these structures is often due to molecular motors such as myosin that require polar substrates for their…
We develop a microscopic biophysical model for self-organization and reshaping of artificial tissue, that is co-driven by microscopic active forces between cells and extracellular matrix (ECM), and macroscopic forces that develop within the…
How cells sense and respond to mechanical stimuli remains an open question. Recent advances have identified the translocation of Yes-associated protein (YAP) between nucleus and cytoplasm as a central mechanism for sensing mechanical forces…
Antagonistic interactions in biological systems, which occur when one perturbation blunts the effect of another, are typically interpreted as evidence that the two perturbations impact the same cellular pathway or function. Yet, this…
Recent work on self-organized remodeling of vasculature in slime-mold, leaf venation systems and vessel systems in vertebrates has put forward a plethora of potential adaptation mechanisms. All these share the underlying hypothesis of a…
Prenatal COVID infection is one of the worst affected and least attended aspects of the COVID-19 disease. Like other coronaviruses, CoV2 infection is anticipated to affect fetal development by maternal inflammatory response on the fetus and…
Homeostasis of protein concentrations in cells is crucial for their proper functioning, and this requires concentrations (at their steady-state levels) to be stable to fluctuations. Since gene expression is regulated by proteins such as…
Extrinsic noise-induced transitions to bimodal dynamics have been largely investigated in a variety of chemical, physical, and biological systems. In the standard approach in physical and chemical systems, the key properties that make these…
Fast and effective drug discovery processes rely on rational drug design to circumvent the tedious and expensive trial and error approach. However, accurate predictions of new remedies, which are often enzyme inhibitors, require a clear…
Assessing the structural properties of large proteins is important to gain an understanding of their function in, e.g., biological systems or biomedical applications. We propose a method to examine the mechanical properties of proteins…