Biological Physics
We introduce an analytical method to generate the pathway of a closed protein-bound DNA minicircle. This is a general method which can be used to connect any two open curves with well defined mathematical definitions as well as pairs of…
We present a simple chemical strategy for the formation of a self-propelling cluster via the process of capture and assembly of passive colloids on the surface of a chemically active colloid. The two species of colloids that are isotropic…
We suggest a new multimodal imaging technique for quantitatively measuring the integral (thickness-average) refractive index of the nuclei of live biological cells in suspension. For this aim, we combined quantitative phase microscopy with…
Understanding the rolling and adhesion behavior of a cell on the vascular surface under viscous shear flow is important to better understand many biological processes. One of the important examples is the adhesion of the leukocytes onto…
Weak interactions form the core basis of a vast number of biological processes, in particular, those involving intrinsically disordered proteins. Here, we establish a new technique capable of probing these weak interactions between…
Roughly half of a cells proteins are located at or near the plasma membrane. In this restricted space the cell senses its environment, signals to its neighbors and ex-changes cargo through exo- and endocytotic mechanisms. Ligands bind to…
The fluorescent nitrogen-vacancy (NV) defect in diamond has remarkable photophysical properties, including high photostability, which allows stable fluorescence emission for hours; as a result, there has been much interest in using…
The cell cortex, a thin film of active material assembled below the cell membrane, plays a key role in cellular symmetry breaking processes such as cell polarity establishment and cell division. Here, we present a minimal model of the…
Stimulated by ongoing discussions about the relevance of mechanical motion in the propagation of nerve signals capillary waves of water-based electrolytes in elastic tubular systems are considered as an essential ingredient. Their…
We discuss the physical mechanisms that promote or suppress the nucleation of a fluid-filled lumen inside a cell assembly or a tissue. We discuss lumen formation in a continuum theory of tissue material properties in which the tissue is…
Calibration of optically trapped particles in-vivo has been complicated given the frequency dependence and spatial inhomogeneity of the cytoplasmic viscosity, and the requirement of accurate knowledge of the medium refractive index.…
Intracellular bidirectional transport of cargo on microtubule filaments is achieved by the collective action of oppositely directed dynein and kinesin motors. Experiments have found that in certain cases, inhibiting the activity of one type…
Computational drug discovery provides an efficient tool helping large scale lead molecules screening. One of the major tasks of lead discovery is identifying molecules with promising binding affinities towards a target, a protein in…
There is increasing evidence that mammalian cells not only crawl on substrates but can also swim in fluids. To elucidate the mechanisms of the onset of motility of cells in suspension, a model which couples actin and myosin kinetics to…
We consider the formation of a single spot (localized solution) in reaction-diffusion (RD) equation on a curved manifold. Specifically, we study the direction (alignment) of the normal to interface between maxima and minima of concentration…
Three-dimensional DNA networks, composed of tri- or higher valent nanostars with sticky, single-stranded DNA overhangs, have been previously studied in the context of designing thermally responsive, viscoelastic hydrogels. In this work, we…
Photosensitive proteins embedded in the cell membrane (about 5 nm thickness) act as photoactivated proton pumps, ion gates, enzymes, or more generally, as initiators of stimuli for the cell activity. They are composed of a protein backbone…
Since time immemorial life has been viewed as being fragile, yet over the past few decades it has been found that many extreme environments are inhabited by organisms known as extremophiles.Knowledge of their emergence, adaptability, and…
How motile bacteria move near a surface is a problem of fundamental biophysical interest and is key to the emergence of several phenomena of biological, ecological and medical relevance, including biofilm formation. Solid boundaries can…
We studied how to obtain a distribution for the number of ancestors in species of sexual reproduction. Present models concentrate on the estimation of distributions repetitions of ancestors in genealogical trees. It has been shown that is…