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In colloidal systems, Brownian motion emerges from the massive separation of time and length scales associated to characteristic dynamics of the solute and solvent constituents. This separation of scales produces several temporal regimes in…
We investigate the dynamics of colloids at a fluid interface driven by attractive capillary interactions. At submillimeter length scales, the capillary attraction is formally analogous to two-dimensional gravity. In particular it is a…
Bacterial conglomerates such as biofilms and microcolonies are ubiquitous in nature and play an important role in industry and medicine. In contrast to well-mixed, diluted cultures routinely used in microbial research, bacteria in a…
We present simulation results addressing the dynamics of a colloidal system with attractive interactions close to gelation. Our interaction also has a soft, long range repulsive barrier which suppresses liquid-gas type phase separation at…
Cooperative binding affects many processes in biology, but it is commonly addressed only in equilibrium. In this work we explore dynamical cooperativity in driven systems, where the cooperation occurs because some of the bonds change the…
Bacteria predate plants and animals by billions of years. Today, they are the world's smallest cells yet they represent the bulk of the world's biomass, and the main reservoir of nutrients for higher organisms. Most bacteria can move on…
Transitions between solid-like and fluid-like states in living tissues have been found in steps of embryonic development and in stages of disease progression. Our current understanding of these transitions has been guided by experimental…
A variety of swimming microorganisms, called ciliates, exploit the bending of a large number of small and densely-packed organelles, termed cilia, in order to propel themselves in a viscous fluid. We consider a spherical envelope model for…
Oscillatory biochemical signals and mechanical forces must coordinate robustly during development, yet the principles governing their mutual coupling remain poorly understood. In syncytial embryos and cell-free extracts, mitotic waves…
Wave-exciting is a universal phenomenon in physical and biological excitable systems. Here we show that colloidal systems of Quincke rollers which are driven periodically can condense into active liquids and active crystals, in which waves…
Ciliated organs transport viscous fluids through confined ducts, yet how duct morphology and ciliary activity jointly set the limits of flow rate and sustainable pressure remains unclear. Here, we model dense arrays of beating cilia lining…
We study the assembly of colloids in a two phase water-water system that provides an environment that can sustain bacteria, providing a new structure with rich potential to confine and structure living colloids. The water-water system,…
Microcolonies are aggregates of a few dozen to a few thousand cells exhibited by many bacteria. The formation of microcolonies is a crucial step towards the formation of more mature bacterial communities known as biofilms, but also marks a…
Essentially all biology is active and dynamic. Biological entities autonomously sense, com- pute, and respond using energy-coupled ratchets that can produce force and do work. The cytoskeleton, along with its associated proteins and motors,…
The persistent motility of the individual constituents in microbial suspensions represents a prime example of so-called active matter systems. Cells consume energy, exert forces and move, overall releasing the constraints of equilibrium…
Spermatozoa flagella are known to synchronize when swimming in close proximity. We use a model consisting of two-dimensional sheets propagating transverse waves of displacement to demonstrate that fluid forces lead to such synchronization…
The transport of motile entities across modulated energy landscapes plays an important role in a range of phenomena in biology, colloidal science and solid-state physics. Here, an easily implementable strategy that allows for the collective…
Recent studies aimed at investigating artificial analogs of bacterial colonies have shown that low-density suspensions of self-propelled particles confined in two dimensions can assemble into finite aggregates that merge and split, but have…
Concentrated suspensions of swimming microorganisms and other forms of active matter are known to display complex, self-organized spatio-temporal patterns on scales large compared to those of the individual motile units. Despite intensive…
Particles that are immersed in a fluid exchange momentum via the fluid, hence their Brownian motion is correlated. By means of multiparticle-collision dynamics simulations we study the interactions between two colloidal beads in a sheared…