Related papers: Ciliary contact interactions dominate surface scat…
Understanding interactions between membranes requires measurements on well-controlled systems close to natural conditions, in which fluctuations play an important role. We have determined, by grazing incidence X-ray scattering, the…
Microscopic swimmers, e.g., chemotactic bacteria and cells, are capable of directed motion by exerting a force on their environment. For asymmetric microswimmers, e.g., bacteria, spermatozoa and many artificial active colloidal particles, a…
The motility of many parasites is critical for the infection process of their host, as exemplified by the transmission cycle of the blood fluke Schistosoma mansoni. In their human infectious stage, immature, submillimetre-scale forms of the…
The swimming properties of an E. coli-type model bacterium are investigated by mesoscale hy- drodynamic simulations, combining molecular dynamics simulations of the bacterium with the multiparticle particle collision dynamics method for the…
Active matter exhibits various forms of non-equilibrium states in the absence of external forcing, including macroscopic steady-state currents. Such states are often too complex to be modelled from first principles and our understanding of…
When treated with antibiotics below the minimum inhibitory concentration, bacterial cell division turns off, but cell growth does not. Thus, rod-like bacteria, including E. coli, can elongate many times their length without increasing their…
We use moving light patterns to control the motion of {\it Escherichia coli} bacteria whose motility is photo-activated. Varying the pattern speed controls the magnitude and direction of the bacterial flux, and therefore the accumulation of…
Collective cell migration plays an essential role in various biological processes, such as development or cancer proliferation. While cell-cell interactions are clearly key determinants of collective cell migration -- in addition to…
Suspensions of unicellular microswimmers such as flagellated bacteria or motile algae exhibit spontaneous density heterogeneities at large enough concentrations. Based on the relative location of the biological actuation appendages i.e.…
Large groups of active cilia collectively beat in a fluid medium as metachronal waves, essential for some microorganisms motility and for flow generation in mucociliary clearance. Several models can predict the emergence of metachronal…
In processes such as embryo shaping, wound healing, and malignant cell invasion, epithelial cells transition between dispersed phases, where the cells move independently, and condensed phases, where they aggregate and deform to close gaps,…
Motivated by recent experiments of motile bacteria crossing liquid-liquid interfaces of isotropic- nematic coexistence (Cheon et al., Soft Matter 20: 7313-7320, 2024), we study the dynamics of prolate microswimmers traversing clean…
In this letter we propose a kinematic model to show how collisions with a surface and rotational Brownian motion give rise to the accumulation of micro-swimmers near a surface. In this model, an elongated microswimmer invariably travels…
Microbial flagellates typically inhabit complex suspensions of polymeric material which can impact the swimming speed of motile microbes, filter-feeding of sessile cells, and the generation of biofilms. There is currently a need to better…
We study the transport of bacteria in a porous media modeled by a square channel containing one cylindrical obstacle via molecular dynamics simulations coupled to a lattice Boltzmann fluid. Our bacteria model is a rod-shaped rigid body…
In nature, microorganisms must often cope with hostile environmental conditions. To do so they have developed sophisticated cooperative behavior and intricate communication capabilities, such as: direct cell-cell physical interactions via…
We use a 3D computational model to study the fluid transport and mixing due to the beating of an infinite array of cilia. In accord with recent experiments, we observe two distinct regions: a fluid transport region above the cilia and a…
The behavior of fluid interfaces far from equilibrium plays central roles in nature and in industry. Active swimmers trapped at interfaces can alter transport at fluid boundaries with far reaching implications. Swimmers can become trapped…
We quantitatively study the transport of E. coli near the walls of confined microfluidic channels, and in more detail along the edges formed by the interception of two perpendicular walls. Our experiments establish the connection between…
Bacteria living on surfaces use different types of motility mechanisms to move on the surface in search of food or to form micro-colonies. Twitching is one such form of motility employed by bacteria such as N. gonorrhoeae, in which the…