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The surface tension of compliant materials such as gels provides resistance to deformation in addition to and sometimes surpassing that due to elasticity. This article studies how surface tension changes the contact mechanics of a small…
Inspired by recent experiments of cells accumulating on anisotropic substrates, we study a two-dimensional, compressible, isotropic, active fluid in the presence of anisotropic friction. We find that regions of anisotropic friction that are…
Active matter systems such as eukaryotic cells and bacteria continuously transform chemical energy to motion. Hence living systems exert active stresses on the complex environments in which they reside. One recurring aspect of this…
Active cell-junction remodeling is important for tissue morphogenesis, yet its underlying physics is not understood. We study a mechanical model that describes junctions as dynamic active force dipoles. Their instability can trigger cell…
We present a comprehensive theoretical and computational model that explores the behavior of a thin hydrated film bonded to a non-hydrated / impermeable soft substrate in the context of surface and bulk elasticity coupled with surface…
The study of the interactions of living adherent cells with mechanically stable (visco)elastic materials enables understanding and exploiting physiological phenomena mediated by cell-extracellular communication. However, insight on the…
Gels are an increasingly important class of soft materials with applications ranging from regenerative medicine to commodity materials. A major drawback of gels is their relative mechanical weakness, which worsens further under strain. We…
Tissue fluidity regulates many critical biological processes, including embryonic development, wound healing, and cancer metastasis. In confluent epithelia, where cell packing fraction is effectively fixed, the prevailing paradigm…
Cell membranes interact via anchored receptor and ligand molecules. Central questions on cell adhesion concern the binding affinity of these membrane-anchored molecules, the mechanisms leading to the receptor-ligand domains observed during…
We investigate the behavior of self-propelled particles under cyclic stretching, inspired by the characteristic pattern dynamics observed in microtubule (MT) motility assays subjected to uniaxial cyclic substrate stretching. We develop a…
Two-dimensional (2D) mechanical models of confluent tissues have related the mechanical state of a monolayer of cells to the average perimeter length of the cell cross sections, predicting floppiness or rigidity of the material. For the…
We consider the derivation and numerical solution of the flow of passive and active polar liquid crystals, whose molecular orientation is subjected to a tangential anchoring on an evolving curved surface. The underlying passive model is a…
Surface stress and surface energy are two fundamental parameters that determine the surface properties of any materials. While it is commonly believed that the surface stress and surface energy of liquids are identical, the relationship…
The balance between stretching and bending deformations characterizes shape transitions of thin elastic sheets. While stretching dominates the mechanical response in tension, bending dominates in compression after an abrupt buckling…
Tissue surface tension influences cell sorting and tissue fusion. Earlier mechanical studies suggest that multicellular spheroids actively reinforce their surface tension with applied force. Here we study this open question through…
We study the structure and the dynamics in the formation of irreversible gels by means of molecular dynamics simulation of a model system where the gelation transition is due to the random percolation of permanent bonds between neighboring…
We develop an effective two-dimensional coarse-grained description for the coupled system of a planar fluid membrane anchored to a thin layer of polar ordered active fluid below. The macroscopic orientation of the active fluid layer is…
In this paper, I study the coarsening dynamics of two-dimensional dry foam sandwiched by deformable membranes. The time-varying deformation of the confining membranes gives rise to a significant alteration in the evolution of polygonal…
We extend a model for the morphology and dynamics of a crawling eukaryotic cell to describe cells on micropatterned substrates. This model couples cell morphology, adhesion, and cytoskeletal flow in response to active stresses induced by…
We study the role of active coupling on the transport properties of homogeneously charged macromolecules in an infinitely dilute solution. An enzyme becomes actively bound to a segment of the macromolecule, exerting an electrostatic force…