Related papers: Diffusion of Macromolecules across the Nuclear Por…
In living cells, molecular motors create activity that enhances the diffusion of particles throughout the cytoplasm, and not just ones attached to the motors. We demonstrate initial steps toward creating artificial cells that mimic this…
Active cellular transport is a fundamental mechanism for protein and vesicle delivery, cell cycle and molecular degradation. Viruses can hijack the transport system and use it to reach the nucleus. Most transport processes consist of…
Geometrical arguments suggest that pore-mediated nucleation happens in general in a two-step fashion, the first step being nucleation within the pore, the second being nucleation from the filled pore into solution [Page & Sear, Phys. Rev.…
Using molecular dynamics simulations we study the static and dynamic properties of spherical nanoparticles (NPs) embedded in a disordered and polydisperse polymer network. Purely repulsive (RNP) as well as weakly attractive (ANP) polymer-NP…
Microgels are elastic and deformable particles with a hybrid nature between that of polymers and colloids and unconventional behaviours with respect to hard colloids. We investigated the dynamics of a soft microgel made of interpenetrated…
We present a method to probe molecular and nanoparticle diffusion within thin, solvated polymer coatings. The device exploits the confinement with well-defined geometry that forms at the interface between a planar and a hemi-spherical…
This article presents a novel computational model to study the selective filtering of biological hydrogels due to the surface charge and size of diffusing particles. It is the first model that includes the random 3D fiber orientation and…
Nucleation, commonly associated with discontinuous transformations between metastable and stable phases, is crucial in fields as diverse as atmospheric science and nanoscale electronics. Traditionally, it is considered a microscopic process…
Tracer-diffusion of small molecules through dense systems of chain polymers is studied within an athermal lattice model, where hard core interactions are taken into account by means of the site exclusion principle. An approximate mapping of…
Ordering nanoparticles into a desired super-structure is often crucial for their technological applications. We use molecular dynamics simulations to study the assembly of nanoparticles in a polymer brush randomly grafted to a planar…
Diffusion of transported particles in the intracellular medium is described by means of a generalized diffusion equation containing forces due to the cytoskeleton network and to the protein motors. We find that the enhanced diffusion…
During the processes of nucleation and growth of a precipitate cluster from a supersaturated solution, the diffusion flux between the cluster and the solution changes the solute concentration near the cluster-solution interface from its…
Herein an alternative model to reptation to describe concentrated polymer dynamics is developed. The model assumes that the chains act as blobs that are able to diffuse past each other in a compressed state. Allowing that the local…
We present an implicit statistical model for the steric effect on the potential of mean force (PMF) of a molecule diffusing through a flexible nanochannel of varying size. The average cross sectional area profile of the channel and the…
Crystallization of supersaturated liquids usually starts by heterogeneous nucleation. Mounting evidence shows that even homogeneous nucleation in simple liquids takes place in two steps; first a dense amorphous precursor forms, and the…
Hyaluronic acid is an abundant polyelectrolyte in the human body that forms extracellular hydrogels in connective tissues. It is essential for regulating tissue biomechanics and cell-cell communication, yet hyaluronan overexpression is…
The transport of deformable particles through porous media underlies a wealth of applications ranging from filtration to oil recovery to the transport and spreading of biological agents. Using direct numerical simulations, we analyze the…
We review theoretical explanation of mechanisms of control of uniformity in growth of nanosize particles and colloids. The nanoparticles are synthesized as nanocrystals, by burst nucleation from solution. The colloids are self-assembled by…
Polymer-coated pores play a crucial role in nucleo-cytoplasmic transport and in a number of biomimetic and nanotechnological applications. Here we present Monte Carlo and Density Functional Theory approaches to identify different collective…
Mesh-like structures, such as mucus gel or cytoskeleton networks, are ubiquitous in biological systems. These intricate structures are composed of cross-linked, semi-flexible bio-filaments, crucial to numerous biological processes. In many…