Related papers: Mechanisms of Size Control and Polymorphism in Vir…
The cowpea chlorotic mottle virus (CCMV) has emerged as an exemplary model system to assess the balance between electrostatic and topological features of ssRNA viruses, specifically in the context of the viral self-assembly process. Yet, in…
The surprising recent discoveries of quasicrystals and their approximants in soft matter systems poses the intriguing possibility that these structures can be realized in a broad range of nano- and micro-scale assemblies. It has been…
In many viruses, hundreds of proteins assemble an outer shell (capsid) around the viral nucleic acid to form an infectious virion. How the assembly process selects the viral genome amidst a vast excess of diverse cellular nucleic acids is…
We report many different nano-structures which are formed when model nano-particles of different sizes (diameter {\sigma} n ) are allowed to aggregate in a background matrix of semi-flexible self assembled polymeric worm like micellar…
We present modeling approaches to explain mechanisms of control of uniformity (narrow distribution) of sizes and shapes in synthesis of nanosize crystals and micron-size colloids. We consider those situations when the nanocrystals are…
Studying physical mechanisms and common geometric principles underlying known spherical packings is crucial for rational design of synthetic nanocontainers. Here we model the growth of small spherical shells containing n<72 identical…
In the self-assembly process which drives the formation of cellular membranes, micelles, and capsids, a collection of separated subunits spontaneously binds together to form functional and more ordered structures. In this work, we study the…
We study the effect of membrane proteins on the shape, composition and thermodynamic stability of the surrounding membrane. When the coupling between membrane composition and curvature is strong enough the nearby composition and shape both…
Self-assembly of complex and functional materials remains a grand challenge in soft material science. Efficient assembly depends on a delicate balance between thermodynamic and kinetic effects, requiring fine-tuning affinities and…
A simple phenomenological model for describing the conformational dynamics of biological macromolecules via the nonlinearity-induced instabilities is proposed. It is shown that the interaction between charges and bending degrees of freedom…
Isomorphs are curves in the thermodynamic phase diagram of invariant excess entropy, structure, and dynamics, while pseudoisomorphs are curves of invariant structure and dynamics, but not of the excess entropy. The latter curves have been…
The self-assembly of copolymeric vesicles and micelles in micromixers is studied by External Potential Dynamics (EPD) simulations -- a dynamic density functional approach that explicitly accounts for the polymer architecture both at the…
Multiple dissipative self-assembly protocols designed to create novel structures or to reduce kinetic traps have recently emerged. Specifically, temporal oscillations of particle interactions have been shown effective at both aims, but…
A vital constituent of a virus is its protein shell, called the viral capsid, that encapsulates and hence provides protection for the viral genome. Assembly models are developed for viral capsids built from protein building blocks that can…
Recent high resolution structures for viral capsids with 12, 32 and 72 subunits ($T1$, $T3$ and $T7$ viruses) have confirmed theoretical predictions of an icosadeltahedral structure with 12 subunits having five nearest neighbors (pentamers)…
Cellular membranes exhibit a large variety of shapes, strongly coupled to their function. Many biological processes involve dynamic reshaping of membranes, usually mediated by proteins. This interaction works both ways: while proteins…
Capillarity-driven self-assembly at fluidic interfaces offers a scalable route to large, reconfigurable materials. Microscale particles with high horizontal-to-vertical aspect ratios become attractive building blocks for shape-directed…
We explore the statistics of assembling soft-matter building blocks to investigate the uptake and encapsulation of cargo particles by carriers engulfing their load. While the such carrier-cargo complexes are important for many applications…
We assemble charged colloidal spheres at deliberately chosen locations on a charged unstructured glass substrate utilizing ion exchange based electro-osmotic micro-pumps. Using microscopy, a simple scaling theory and Brownian Dynamics…
Assembly and stability of mitotic spindle is governed by the interplay of various intra-cellular forces, e.g. the forces generated by motor proteins by sliding overlapping anti-parallel microtubules (MTs) polymerized from the opposite…