Related papers: Multicellular rosettes drive fluid-solid transitio…

Collective cell migration plays a central role in tissue development, morphogenesis, wound repair and cancer progression. With the growing realization that physical forces mediate cell motility in development and physiology, a key…

In vitro collagen networks and in silico fiber network models are typically used to represent extracellular matrix in tissues. Such networks exhibit the phenomenon of strain-stiffening, or an increase in elastic modulus with increasing…

Using three-dimensional representation of confluent cell layers, we map the amorphous solid to fluid phase transition in active cell layers onto the two-dimensional (2D) site percolation universality class. Importantly, we unify two…

We use a computational phase-field model together with analytical analysis to study how inter-cellular active forces can mediate individual cell morphology and collective motion in a confluent cell monolayer. Contractile inter-cellular…

Many morphogenetic processes involve mechanical rearrangement of epithelial tissues that is driven by precisely regulated cytoskeletal forces and cell adhesion. The mechanical state of the cell and intercellular adhesion are not only the…

The deformation of thin rods in a viscous liquid is central to the mechanics of motility in cells ranging from \textit{Escherichia coli} to sperm. Here we use experiments and theory to study the shape transition of a flexible rod rotating…

We study elasticity-driven morphological transitions of soft spherical core shell structures in which the core can be treated as an isotropic elastic continuum and the surface or shell as a tensionless liquid layer, whose elastic response…

Most of the liquid-state theories, including glass-transition theories, are constructed on the basis of two-body density correlations. However, we have recently shown that many-body correlations, in particular bond orientational…

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…

Fluid membranes made out of lipid bilayers are the fundamental separation structure in eukaryotic cells. Many physiological processes rely on dramatic shape and topological changes (e.g. fusion, fission) of fluid membrane systems. Fluidity…

We study the mixing in the presence of convective flow in a porous medium. Convection is characterized by the formation of vortices and stagnation points, where the fluid interface is stretched and compressed enhancing mixing. We analyze…

Life in complex systems, such as cities and organisms, comes to a standstill when global coordination of mass, energy, and information flows is disrupted. Global coordination is no less important in single cells, especially in large oocytes…

It is widely appreciated that surface tension can dominate the behavior of liquids at small scales. Solids also have surface stresses of a similar magnitude, but they are usually overlooked. However, recent work has shown that these can…

Collective cell migration underlies important biological processes, such as embryonic development, wound healing and cancer invasion. While many aspects of single cell movements are now well established, the mechanisms leading to…

The buckling of a soft elastic sample under growth or swelling has highlighted a new interest in materials science, morphogenesis, and biology or physiology. Indeed, the change of mass or volume is a common fact of any living species, and…

Mechanical characteristics of single biological cells are used to identify and possibly leverage interesting differences among cells or cell populations. Fluidity---hysteresivity normalized to the extremes of an elastic solid or a viscous…

The phase transition of a fluid adsorbed in a heterogeneous system is studied with two simple lattice gas models within the framework of a mean-field theory. Despite the different origin of the heterogeneity (spatial variation of binding…

The balance between stretching and bending deformations characterizes shape transitions of thin elastic sheets. While stretching dominates the mechanical response in tension, bending dominates in compression after an abrupt buckling…

Tissue surface tension influences cell sorting and tissue fusion. Earlier mechanical studies suggest that multicellular spheroids actively reinforce their surface tension with applied force. Here we study this open question through…

Animal morphogenesis involves complex tissue deformation processes, which require tight control over tissue rheology. Yet, it remains insufficiently understood how tissue rheology results from the interplay between cellular packing and…