Biological Physics
Stochastic modeling of gene expression is a classic problem in theoretical biophysics, and the burst approximation is widely used to simplify gene expression models formulated via the chemical master equation. However, the approximation…
Biology stores information and computes at the molecular scale, yet the ways in which it does so are often distinct from human-engineered computers. Mapping biological computation onto architectures familiar to computer science remains an…
Brillouin Microscopy is a novel label-free optical technique that enables the measurement of a material's mechanical properties at the sub-micron scale in a non-invasive and non-contact way; in the last few years, its applications in the…
Biomolecular condensates organize biochemical processes by spatially concentrating molecules while allowing for dynamic exchange with their surroundings. However, transport across their interface can be strongly attenuated, leading to…
Implicit solvent models (ISMs) promise to deliver the accuracy of explicit solvent simulations at a fraction of the computational cost. However, despite decades of development, their accuracy has remained insufficient for many critical…
Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond provide a versatile quantum sensing platform for biological imaging through magnetic field detection, offering unlimited photostability and the ability to perform long-term observations without…
Dissipative coupling is known to induce synchronization. Conversely it may be hypothesized that oscillators driven to synchronize may reduce power dissipation in their coupling. The latter scenario is realized in the human cardiorespiratory…
Cells are constantly exposed to diverse stimuli-chemical, mechanical, or electrical-that guide their movement. In physiological conditions, these signals often overlap, as seen during infections, where neutrophils and dendritic cells…
We employ a typical genetic circuit model to explore how noise can influence the dynamic structure. With the increase of a key interactive parameter, the model will deterministically go through two bifurcations and three dynamic structure…
We introduce $\pi$-Girsanov, a new method for constructing Markov state models from biased enhanced-sampling molecular dynamics simulations based on Girsanov reweighting. The key idea behind this new method is to separate the reweighting…
How microorganisms respond to and interact with their environment can vary significantly from individual to individual, which can have important microbiological and ecological implications. However, most microscopy techniques can only…
Exchange between tissue compartments is crucial for interpretation of diffusion MRI measurements in brain gray matter. However, reported values of exchange time are broadly dispersed, about two orders of magnitude. We analyze the…
Bone serves as a remarkable example of nature's architectured material with its unique blend of strength and toughness, all at a lightweight design. Given the hierarchical nature of these materials, it is essential to understand the…
Glassy dynamics in active biological cells remain a subject of debate, as cellular activity rarely slows enough for true glassy features to emerge. In this study, we address this paradox of glassy dynamics in epithelial cells by integrating…
Our understanding of neural computation is founded on the assumption that neurons fire in response to a linear summation of inputs. Yet experiments demonstrate that some neurons are capable of complex functions that require interactions…
Electrospray ion beam deposition (ESIBD) is the intact, chemically selective deposition of molecular ions on surfaces in vacuum. Here, we present a general method and dedicated instrumentation for ESIBD-based cryoEM sample preparation of…
Diffusion in living tissues governs essential physiological processes and is well studied within cells. Yet how extracellular molecular motion emerges from the structural complexity of tissues remains unresolved. In the brain, molecules…
The criticality hypothesis posits that biological neural networks operate near a phase transition, yet within standard Gaussian mean-field theories this regime appears fragile and requires fine tuning. Here we show that heavy-tailed…
In this article, I advance the idea that physics plays a central role in cell differentiation and makes fundamental contributions to morphogenesis, revealing the totipotent nature of the zygote. Totipotency is a persistent mechanical memory…
Populations of cells regulate gene expression in response to external signals, but their ability to make reliable collective decisions is limited by both intrinsic noise in molecular signaling and variability between individual cells. In…