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Constancy of life vitally depends on the internalization of particles through biomembranes. Of particular interest, cellular uptake, including phagocytosis, receptor-mediated endocytosis, and membrane fusion, critically depends on the…
Lipid vesicles composed of a mixture of two types of lipids are studied by intensive Monte-Carlo numerical simulations. The coupling between the local composition and the membrane shape is induced by two different spontaneous curvatures of…
Lipid membranes regulate the flow of materials and information between cells and their organelles. Further, lipid composition and morphology can play a key role in regulating a variety of biological processes. For example, viral uptake,…
The organization of live cells into tissues and their subsequent biological function involves inter-cell mechanical interactions, which are mediated by their elastic environment. To model this interaction, we consider cells as spherical…
Formation and rupture of vesicles is a fundamental process underlying diverse phenomena in biology, materials science, and biomedical applications. Vesicles form when the area of a growing disk-like membrane exceeds a critical value at…
We explore the pressure of active particles on curved surfaces and its relation to other interfacial properties. We use both direct simulations of the active systems as well as simulations of an equilibrium system with effective (pair)…
Morphogenesis emerges from dynamic feedback among geometry, mechanics, and chemistry; however, disentangling these contributions in living systems remains challenging. Here, we focus on the interplay between geometry and mechanics by…
Changes in the geometry and topology of self-assembled membranes underlie diverse processes across cellular biology and engineering. Similar to lipid bilayers, monolayer colloidal membranes have in-plane fluid-like dynamics and out-of-plane…
We present a novel Monte Carlo simulation of the phase separation dynamics of a model fluid membrane. Such a phase segregation induces shape changes of the membrane and results in local `budding' under favourable conditions. We present a…
The statistical-mechanical study of the equilibrium properties of fluids, starting from the knowledge of the interparticle interaction potential, is essential to understand the role that microscopic interaction between individual particles…
Plasma membrane tubes are ubiquitous in cellular membranes and in the membranes of intracellular organelles. They play crucial roles in trafficking, ion transport, and cellular motility. The formation of plasma membrane tubes can be due to…
The membrane curvature of cells and intracellular compartments continuously adapts to enable cells to perform vital functions, from cell division to signal trafficking. Understanding how membrane geometry affects these processes in vivo is…
Recent experiments by Kantsler et. al. (2007) have shown that the relaxational dynamics of a vesicle in external elongation flow is accompanied by the formation of wrinkles on a membrane. Motivated by these experiments we present a theory…
The organization of live cells to tissues is associated with the mechanical interaction between cells, which is mediated through their elastic environment. We model cells as spherical active force dipoles surrounded by an infinite elastic…
Large-scale cellular transformations are triggered by subtle physical and structural changes in individual biomacromolecular and membrane components. A prototypical example of such an event is the orchestrated fusion of membranes within an…
Particles in soft matter often interact through the deformation field they create, as in the "cheerios" effect or the curvature-mediated interactions of membrane proteins. Using a simple model for field-mediated interactions between passive…
In this work, we study the adhesion of multi-component vesicle membrane to both flat and curved substrates, based on the conventional Helfrich bending energy for multi-component vesicles and adhesion potentials of different forms. A phase…
We study mutual alignment and interactions between colloidal particles of dissimilar shapes and dimensions when dispersed in a nematic host fluid. Convex pentagonal and concave starfruit-shaped nanoprisms and microspheres induce dipolar or…
Elastic crystalline membranes exhibit a buckling transition from sphere to polyhedron. However, their morphologies are restricted to convex polyhedra and are difficult to externally control. Here, we study morphological changes of closed…
Uncovering the rules governing the nonequilibrium dynamics of the membranes that define biological cells is of central importance to understanding the physics of living systems. We theoretically and computationally investigate the behavior…