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Hydrodynamic interaction strongly influences the collective behavior of the microswimmers. With this work, we study the behavior of two hydrodynamically interacting self-propelled chiral swimmers in the low Reynolds number regime,…
Navigation of microorganisms is controlled by internal processes ultimately sensitive to mechanical or chemical signaling encountered along the path. In many natural environments, such as porous soils or physiological ducts, motile species…
Cooperative motion in biological microswimmers is crucial for their survival as it facilitates adhesion to surfaces, formation of hierarchical colonies, efficient motion, and enhanced access to nutrients. Synthetic microswimmers currently…
The hydrodynamic interactions among bacterial cell bodies, flagella, and surrounding boundaries are essential for understanding bacterial motility in complex environments. In this study, we demonstrate that each slender flagellum can be…
Eukaryotes swim with coordinated flagellar (ciliary) beating and steer by fine-tuning the coordination. The model organism for studying flagellate motility, C. reinhardtii (CR), employs synchronous, breast-stroke-like flagellar beating to…
Many small organisms self-propel in viscous fluids using travelling wave-like deformation of their bodies or appendages. Examples include small nematodes moving through soil using whole-body undulations or spermatozoa swimming through mucus…
Run-and-tumble (RT) motion is commonly observed in flagellated microswimmers, arising from synchronous and asynchronous flagellar beating. One such example is a biflagellated alga, called \textit{Chlamydomonas reinhardtii}. Its flagellar…
Malaria microscopy, microscopic examination of stained blood slides to detect parasite Plasmodium, is considered to be a gold-standard for detecting life-threatening disease malaria. Detecting the plasmodium parasite requires a skilled…
Limbless crawling is ubiquitous in biology, from cells to organisms. We develop and analyze a model for the dynamics of one-dimensional elastic crawlers, subject to active stress and deformation-dependent friction with the substrate. We…
Bacterial swarming is a rapid mass-migration, in which thousands of cells spread collectively to colonize a surface. Physically, swarming is a natural example of active particles that use energy to generate motion. Accordingly,…
The natural habitats of microorganisms in the human microbiome and ocean and soil ecosystems are full of colloids and macromolecules, which impart non-Newtonian flow properties drastically affecting the locomotion of swimming…
We study the chemotaxis of a population of genetically identical swimming bacteria undergoing run and tumble dynamics driven by stochastic switching between clockwise and counterclockwise rotation of the flagellar rotary system.…
Swimming eukaryotic microorganisms such as spermatozoa, algae and ciliates self-propel in viscous fluids using travelling wave-like deformations of slender appendages called flagella. Waves are predominant because Purcell's scallop theorem…
Distinguishing between swarming and swimming, the two principal forms of bacterial movement, holds significant conceptual and clinical relevance. This is because bacteria that exhibit swarming capabilities often possess unique properties…
We experimentally study the emergence of collective bacterial swimming, a phenomenon often referred to as bacterial turbulence. A phase diagram of the flow of 3D E. coli suspensions spanned by bacterial concentration, the swimming speed of…
Bacteria such as Escherichia coli (E. coli) exhibit biased motion if kept in a spatially non-uniform chemical environment. Here, we bring out unique time-dependent characteristics of bacterial chemotaxis, in response to a diffusing spatial…
The role of activity on the hydrodynamic dispersion of bacteria in a model porous medium is studied by tracking thousands of bacteria in a microfluidic chip containing randomly placed pillars. We first evaluate the spreading dynamics of two…
Conjugation accelerates bacterial evolution by enabling bacteria to acquire genes horizontally from their neighbors. Plasmid donors must physically encounter and connect with recipients to allow plasmid transfer, and different environments…
Legionella are gram-negative, facultative intracellular, and pathogenic bacteria that pose a risk for human health and cause significant energy losses due to extensive preventive heating-up of water installations. We investigate…
The motility of microorganisms is influenced greatly by their hydrodynamic interactions with the fluidic environment they inhabit. We show by direct experimental observation of the bi-flagellated alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii that fluid…