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We discuss shape profiles emerging in inhomogeneous growth of squeezed tissues. Two approaches are used simultaneously: i) conformal embedding of two-dimensional domain with hyperbolic metrics into the plane, and ii) a pure energetic…
Two-dimensional (2D) particulate aggregates formed due to competing interactions exhibit a range of non-equilibrium steady state morphologies from finite-size compact crystalline structures to non-compact string-like conformations. We…
The connection between the properties of cell tissue and those of the single constituent cells remains to be elucidated. At the purely mechanical level, the degree of rigidity of different cellular components, such as the nucleus and the…
We study the dynamics of proliferating cell collectives whose microscopic constituents' growth is inhibited by macroscopic growth-induced stress. Discrete particle simulations of a growing collective show the emergence of concentric-ring…
The mechanical, optical, and chemical properties of a wide variety of soft materials are enabled and constrained by their bulk structure. How this structure emerges at small system sizes during self-assembly has been the subject of decades…
We present a continuum model trained on molecular dynamics (MD) simulations for cellular membranes composed of an arbitrary number of lipid types. The model is constructed within the formalism of dynamic density functional theory and can be…
Cells attach to their environment by means of focal adhesions, which are molecular complexes that exhibit the remarkable ability to adapt to mechanical load by changing their size. Drawing from the biomolecular mechanisms underlying this…
Cell-cell contacts in tissues are continuously subject to mechanical forces due to homeostatic pressure and active cytoskeleton dynamics. While much is known about the molecular pathways of adhesion, the role of mechanics is less well…
Gels in soft-matter systems are an important nonergodic state of matter. We study a colloid-polymer mixture which is quenched by increasing the polymer concentration, from a fluid to a gel. Using confocal microscopy, we study both the…
Building structures with hierarchical order through the self-assembly of smaller blocks is not only a prerogative of nature, but also a strategy to design artificial materials with tailored functions. We explore in simulation the…
The ability of liquid interfaces to shape slender elastic structures provides powerful strategies to control the architecture of mechanical self assemblies. However, elastocapillarity-driven intelligent design remains unexplored in more…
The mechanical properties of cells, which influence the properties of the tissue they belong to, are controlled by various mechanisms. Bi et al. theoretically demonstrated that density-independent rigidity transition occurs in…
Tissue engineering aims to grow artificial tissues \emph{in vitro} to replace those in the body that have been damaged through age, trauma or disease. A recent approach to engineer artificial cartilage involves seeding cells within a…
How do cells tune emergent properties at the scale of tissues? One class of such emergent behaviors are rigidity transitions, in which a tissue changes from a solid-like to a fluid-like state or vice versa. Here, we introduce a new way for…
A detailed understanding of the interface between living cells and substrate materials is of rising importance in many fields of medicine, biology and biotechnology. Cells at interfaces often form epithelia. The physical barrier that they…
We introduce a method for modeling a configuration of objects in 2D or 3D images using a mathematical "skeletal linking structure" which will simultaneously capture the individual shape features of the objects and their positional…
Interfacial structure and correlation functions near a two-dimensional (2D) wedge filling transition are studied using effective interfacial Hamiltonian models. An exact solution for short range binding potentials and results for Kratzer…
Functionality of living cells is inherently linked to subunits with dimensions on the nanoscale. In case of osteoblasts the cell surface plays a particularly important role for adhesion and spreading which are crucial properties with regard…
We model the thermodynamics of local structures within the hard sphere liquid at arbitrary volume fractions through the \textit{morphometric} calculation of $n$-body correlations. We calculate absolute free energies of local geometric…
Patterns generated by a colloidal suspension of nanospheres drying on a frictional substrate are studied by experiments and computer simulations. The obtained two-dimensional self-assembled structures are commonly used for nanosphere…