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Both action potentials and mechanosensitive signalling are an important communication mechanisms in plants. Considering an information theoretic framework, this paper explores the effective range of multiple action potentials for a long…
Phototaxis of many species of green algae relies upon directional sensitivity of their membrane-bound photoreceptors, which arises from the presence of a pigmented "eyespot" behind them that blocks light passing through the cell body from…
Mechanical algesia is an important process for the preservation of living organisms, allowing potentially life-saving reflexes or decisions when given body parts are stressed. Yet, its various underlying mechanisms remain to be fully…
Neural Cellular Automata (NCAs) are a model of morphogenesis, capable of growing two-dimensional artificial organisms from a single seed cell. In this paper, we show that NCAs can be trained to respond to signals. Two types of signal are…
This work presents a new fiberless soft pneumatic actuator that can work multifunctional and bidirectional, and its embedded sensors give it a self-proprioception ability. This actuator works based on the idea of employing helical pressure…
The motility of a cell can be triggered or inhibited not only by an applied force but also by a mechanically neutral force couple. This type of loading, represented by an applied stress and commonly interpreted as either squeezing or…
The appealing feature of molecular electronics is the possibility of exploiting functionality built within a single molecule. This functionality can be employed, for example, for sensing or switching purposes. Thus, ideally, the associated…
In cell proliferation, stem cell differentiation, chemoresistance and tissue organization, the ubiquitous role of YAP/TAZ continues to impact our fundamental understanding in numerous physiological and disease systems. YAP/TAZ is an…
Plants can sense both intracellular and extracellular mechanical forces and can respond through morphological changes. The signaling components responsible for mechanotransduction of the touch response are largely unknown. Here, we…
The growth of a tissue, which depends on cell-cell interactions and biologically relevant process such as cell division and apoptosis, is regulated by a mechanical feedback mechanism. We account for these effects in a minimal…
This paper deepens into the analysis of the protein secondary structure using Frenet frame to describe the curvature and torsion of the discrete curve formed by the protein $\alpha$-carbons. We show how a simple criterion based on the…
Adhesion between a T cell and an antigen presenting cell is achieved by TCR-pMHC and LFA1-ICAM1 protein complexes. These segregate to form a special pattern, known as the immunological synapse (IS), consisting of a central quasi-circular…
The actin cortex is an active biopolymer network underneath the plasma membrane at the periphery of mammalian cells. It is a major regulator of cell shape through the generation of active cortical tension. In addition, the cortex…
We present a tactile sensing method enabled by the mechanical compliance of soft robots; an externally attachable photoreflective module reads surface deformation of silicone skin to estimate contact force without embedding tactile…
Recently, modulation of the energy bandgap of graphene when gas molecules are adsorbed to its surface has been proved to be possible. Motivated by this, based on numerical calculations, we investigate the effect of the associated bandgap…
Efficient detection of harmful organic volatile compounds is a major health and environmental need in industrialized societies. Tailor-made metal-organic frameworks and other coordination polymers are emerging as promising sensing molecular…
Soft sensors have continued growing interest in robotics, due to their ability to enable both passive conformal contact from the material properties and active contact data from the sensor properties. However, the same properties of…
Microcavity and whispering gallery mode (WGM) biosensors derive their sensitivity from monitoring frequency shifts induced by protein binding at sites of highly confined field intensities, where field strengths can be further amplified by…
Mechanics and biochemical signaling are both often deregulated in cancer, leading to cancer cell phenotypes that exhibit increased invasiveness, proliferation, and survival. The dynamics and interactions of cytoskeletal components control…
A living cell senses its environment and responds to external signals. In this work, we study theoretically, the precision at which cells can determine the position of a spatially localized transient extracellular signal. To this end, we…