Biological Physics
Current single molecule methods either rely on fluorescence or lack chemical information. Here we report stimulated Raman photothermal encoded scattering (SRPSCAT) microscopy for quantitative bond-selective imaging of single-biomolecule…
Mathematical network models are extremely useful to capture complex propagation processes between different regions (nodes), for example the spread of an infectious agent between different countries, or the transport and replication of…
As exposure to electromagnetic waves becomes increasingly widespread, it is important to quantify how incident fields couple into biological tissue and where absorbed energy is deposited. This work presents an analytical, physics based…
The electric field of biological membranes has long been treated as a one-dimensional quantity, defined solely by the component normal to the bilayer (E_VERT). Here, we present a bioelectronic platform that enables controlled generation of…
This paper deals with the mathematical modelling of signal propagation in nerve fibres. Due to the complexity of the processes where electrical, mechanical, and thermal effects are coupled, a phenomenological approach helps to build…
Voltage-gated ion channels are essential for propagating signals in neurons. Each channel senses the local membrane potential created by nearby ions. Fluctuations in these ions introduce two fundamental noise sources: (i) shot noise, from…
Quantitative characterization of biophysical alterations caused by viral infection remains at an early stage. In this study, we examined the mechanical response of Vero cells after exposure to an attenuated Measles Vaccine Virus using…
Microtubules capture chromosomes during mitosis by stochastically switching between growth and shrinkage at catastrophe events. They display strikingly rich biochemistry and dynamics, regulated by a stabilizing cap with distinct…
A defining feature of efflux pumps is multidrug polyspecificity, which to date still eludes some of the traditional dogmas of drug binding within protein science. We propose a combinatorial approach to explore the neighbourhood of efflux…
We investigate active particles that exhibit long-range interactions only restricted by a field of view, which is characterized by an angle $\beta$. We show that constraining attractive interactions to a field of view leads to the emergence…
Groups of cells, including clusters of cancerous cells, multicellular organisms, and developing organs, may both grow and break apart. What physical factors control these fractures? In these processes, what sets the eventual size of…
Deterministic many-body systems governed by simple interactions can self-organize into macroscopic patterns, and the determinants of long-time behavior are assumed to be encoded in the initial configuration. Here we show that predictability…
The bacterial flagellar motor (BFM) is a rotary molecular machine driven by the ion electrochemical potential across the cell membrane. Recent cryo-EM structures reveal a cogwheel-like architecture in which multiple stators engage a large…
Entropy production is often used as a proxy for energy consumption of a non-equilibrium system. Lower bounds can be estimated from coarse-grained observations, and this has been done for various biological systems. Here, we apply these…
Bacterial chromosome replication occurs in the absence of a canonical spindle apparatus; yet it reliably produces organised and segregated genomes. While both passive and active mechanisms have been investigated, DNA replication itself is a…
Braess's paradox -- where adding network capacity increases travel time -- is typically attributed to selfish agents. Although eusocial colonies maximize collective fitness, we find experimentally that \emph{Diacamma indicum} ants exhibit…
Inspired by biology's use of vesicles for targeted transport, many studies have propelled liposomes with active matter, creating synthetic systems that can be viewed as microscale biohybrid robots. Nevertheless, the underlying motility…
The product of resting heart rate and maximum lifespan is approximately constant across adult warm-blooded vertebrates, $N^\star = f_H L \approx 10^9$ cardiac cycles, a regularity documented since Rubner (1908) but lacking a thermodynamic…
The branching geometry of biological transport networks is characterized by a diameter scaling exponent $\alpha$. Two structural attractors compete: impedance matching ($\alpha \sim 2$) for pulsatile flow and viscous-metabolic minimization…
We present a rotationally invariant viscous vertex model that accounts for both cortical and bulk dissipation of cells. The vanishing substrate-friction limit is enforced via Lagrange multipliers, which also provides a framework for…