Related papers: Testing an agent-based model of bacterial cell mot…
For a gas confined between surfaces held at different temperatures the velocity distribution shows a significant deviation from the Maxwell distribution when the mean free path of the molecules is comparable to or larger than the channel…
Production of energy (metabolism) and its distribution is vital for living organisms, both at individual level - between different functions of an organism, as well as between species of communities at different organizational levels,…
Many fascinating properties of biological active matter crucially depend on the capacity of constituting entities to perform directed motion, e.g., molecular motors transporting vesicles inside cells or bacteria searching for food. While…
Bacteria track chemical gradients using a biased random walk, a process called chemotaxis. Experiments suggest that bacteria also communicate during this process. Using a mathematical model, we find that sufficiently strong communication…
Active matter comprises individual units that convert energy into mechanical motion. In many examples, such as bacterial systems and biofilament assays, constituent units are elongated and can give rise to local nematic orientational order.…
Photosynthetic organisms use networks of chromophores to absorb sunlight and deliver the energy to reaction centres, where charge separation triggers a cascade of chemical steps to store the energy. We present a detailed model of the…
The origins of the large differences observed to the rates with which the diverse particles are conveyed along axonal microtubules are still a matter of debate in the literature. There is evidence that certain neurodegenerative diseases may…
The diffusion of active microscopic organisms in complex environments plays an important role in a wide range of biological phenomena from cell colony growth to single organism transport. Here, we investigate theoretically and…
Collective motion of cells is common in many physiological processes, including tissue development, repair, and tumor formation. Recent experiments have shown that certain malignant cancer cells form clusters in a chemoattractant gradient,…
For a two-dimensional system of agents modeled by molecular dynamics, we simulate epidemics spreading, which was recently studied on complex networks. Our resulting network model is time-evolving. We study the transitions to spreading as…
Interventions to increase active commuting have been recommended as a method to increase population physical activity, but evidence is mixed. Social norms related to travel behaviour may influence the uptake of active commuting…
Models based on surfactant driven instabilities have been employed to describe pattern formation by swarming bacteria. However, by definition, such models cannot account for the effect of bacterial sensing and decision making. Here we…
The cell cytoskeleton is a striking example of "active" medium driven out-of-equilibrium by ATP hydrolysis. Such activity has been shown recently to have a spectacular impact on the mechanical and rheological properties of the cellular…
Bacterial chemotaxis is one of the most extensively studied adaptive responses in cells. Many bacteria are able to bias their apparently random motion to produce a drift in the direction of the increasing chemoattractant concentration. It…
Peritrichous bacteria synchronize and bundle their flagella to actively swim while disruption of the bundle leads to tumbling. It is still not known whether the number of flagella represents an evolutionary adaptation towards optimizing…
Nutrient limitation is one of the most common triggers of antibiotic tolerance and persistence. Here, we present two microfluidic setups to study how spatial and temporal variation in nutrient availability lead to increased survival of…
Bacterial sensor systems can be used for the detection and measurement of molecular signal concentrations. The dynamics of the sensor directly depend on the biological properties of the bacterial sensor cells; manipulation of these features…
Active inference helps us simulate adaptive behavior and decision-making in biological and artificial agents. Building on our previous work exploring the relationship between active inference, well-being, resilience, and sustainability, we…
We present a modelling framework for the dynamics of cells structured by the concentration of a micromolecule they contain. We derive general equations for the evolution of the cell population and of the extra-cellular concentration of the…
The notions of taxis and kinesis are introduced and used to describe two types of behavior of an organism in non-uniform conditions: (i) Taxis means the guided movement to more favorable conditions; (ii) Kinesis is the non-directional…