Related papers: Shape Optimization of Compliant Pressure Actuated …

Two-dimensional shape-morphing networks are common in biological systems and have garnered attention due to their nontrivial physical properties that emanate from their cellular nature. Here, we present the fabrication and characterization…

We study the vertex model for epithelial tissue mechanics extended to include coupling between the cell shapes and tensions in cell-cell junctions. This coupling represents an active force which drives the system out of equilibrium and…

In this paper, we model the configurations of a system of hard rods by viewing each rod in a cell formed by its neighbors. By minimizing the free energy in the model and performing molecular dynamics, where, in both cases, the shape of the…

Cells exert traction forces on compliant substrates and can induce surface instabilities that appear as characteristic wrinkling patterns. Here, we develop a mechanical description of cell-induced wrinkling on soft substrates using a thin…

The multiplicative decomposition model is widely employed for predicting residual stresses and morphologies of biological tissues due to growth. However, it relies on the assumption that the tissue is initially in a stress-free state, which…

Many critical biological processes, like wound healing, require confluent cell monolayers/bulk tissues to transition from a jammed solid-like to a fluid-like state. Although numerical studies anticipate changes in the cell shape alone can…

The study of organoids, artificially grown cell aggregates with the functionality and small-scale anatomy of real organs, is one of the most active areas of research in biology and biophysics, yet the basic physical origins of their…

Cellularized tissue and polymer networks can both transition from floppy to rigid as a function of their control parameters, and, yet, the two systems often mechanically interact, which may affect their respective rigidities. To study this…

Different cell types aggregate and sort into hierarchical architectures during the formation of animal tissues. The resulting spatial organization depends (in part) on the strength of adhesion of one cell type to itself relative to other…

Recent experimental observations have suggested that topological defects can facilitate the creation of sharp features in developing embryos. Whereas these observations echo established knowledge about the interplay between geometry and…

Many cellular organelles are membrane-bound structures with complex membrane composition and shape. Their shapes have been observed to depend on the metabolic state of the organelle, and the mechanisms that couple biochemical pathways and…

This paper presents an angle-based approach for distributed formation shape stabilization of multi-agent systems in the plane. We develop an angle rigidity theory to study whether a planar framework can be determined by angles between…

The polarisation of cells and tissues is fundamental for tissue morphogenesis during biological development and regeneration. A deeper understanding of biological polarity pattern formation can be gained from the consideration of pattern…

Cells self-organize into functional, ordered structures during tissue morphogenesis, a process that is evocative of colloidal self-assembly into engineered soft materials. Understanding how inter-cellular mechanical interactions may drive…

Nanocrystals can exist in multiply twinned structures like the icosahedron, or single crystalline structures like the cuboctahedron or Wulff-polyhedron. Structural transformation between these polymorphic structures can proceed through…

Materials that change their shape in response to external stimuli opens up new prospects for efficient and versatile design and shaping of three-dimensional objects. Here, we present a novel class of micro-structures exhibiting an…

We unveil the generation of universal morphologies of fluid interfaces by radiation pressure whatever is the nature of the wave, acoustic or optical. Experimental observations reveal interface deformations endowed with step-like features…

While it is commonly observed that the shape dynamics of mammalian cells can undergo large random fluctuations, theoretical models aiming at capturing cell mechanics often focus on the deterministic part of the motion. In this paper, we…

Living cells employ excitable reaction-diffusion waves for internal cellular functions, in which curvature-inducing proteins are often involved. However, the role of their mechanochemical coupling is not well understood. Here, we report the…

Nematic elastomers and glasses are solids that display spontaneous distortion under external stimuli. Recent advances in the synthesis of sheets with controlled heterogeneities have enabled their actuation into non-trivial shapes with…