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Epidemic disease spreading is conventionally often modelled and analyzed by means of rate and diffusion equations, following the paradigms of well-controlled chemical reactions and diffusive dynamics in a test tube. Yet, serious worries…
Living organisms survive and multiply even though they have uncertain and incomplete information about their environment and imperfect models to predict the consequences of their actions. Bayesian models have been proposed to face this…
This paper studies the mitigation of intersymbol interference in a diffusive molecular communication system using enzymes that freely diffuse in the propagation environment. The enzymes form reaction intermediates with information molecules…
Reaction-diffusion processes in two-dimensional percolating structures are investigated. Two different problems are addressed: reaction spreading on a percolating cluster and front propagation through a percolating channel. For reaction…
Spheroids are aggregates of cells that can mimic the cellular organization often found in tissues. They are typically formed through the self-assembly of cells in a culture where there is a promotion of interactions and cell-to-cell…
Two species with similar resource requirements respond in a characteristic way to variations in their habitat -- their abundances rise and fall in concert. We use this idea to learn how bacterial populations in the microbiota respond to…
Bacteria are known to exchange genetic information by horizontal gene transfer. Since the frequency of homologous recombination depends on the similarity of recombining segments, several studies examined whether this could lead to the…
Bacteria populate the colon where they replicate and migrate in response to nutrient availability. Here I model the colon bacterial population as a sandpile model, the colon-pile. Sand addition mimics bacterial replication and grains…
A cooperative drug delivery system is proposed, where quorum sensing (QS), a density-dependent bacterial behavior coordination mechanism, is employed by synthetic bacterium-based nanomachines (B-NMs) for controllable drug delivery. In our…
Over the past decade, advances in super-resolution microscopy and particle-based modeling have driven an intense interest in investigating spatial heterogeneity at the level of single molecules in cells. Remarkably, it is becoming clear…
Centrifugation is a widespread laboratory technique used to separate mixtures into fractions characterized by a specific size, weight or density. We demonstrate that centrifugation can be also used to separate swimming cells having…
It has recently been reported that bacteria, such as E.coli and P. putida, perform distinct modes of motion when placed in porous media as compared to dilute regions or free space. This has led us to suggest an efficient strategy for active…
Competition between random genetic drift and natural selection plays a central role in evolution: Whereas non-beneficial mutations often prevail in small populations by chance, mutations that sweep through large populations typically confer…
Communicating cells can coordinate their gene expressions to form spatial patterns. 'Secrete-and-sense cells' secrete and sense the same molecule to do so and are ubiquitous. Here we address why and how these cells, from disordered…
We study colonies of non-motile, rod-shaped bacteria growing on solid substrates. In our model, bacteria interact purely mechanically, by pushing each other away as they grow, and consume a diffusing nutrient. We show that mechanical…
Unraveling bacterial strategies for spatial exploration is crucial for understanding the complexity in the organization of life. Bacterial motility determines the spatio-temporal structure of microbial communities, controls infection…
Bacterial quorum sensing can be engineered with a view to the design of biotechnological applications based on their intrinsic role as a means of communication. We propose the creation of a positive feedback loop that will promote the…
Lateral diffusion of molecules on surfaces plays a very important role in various biological processes, including lipid transport across the cell membrane, synaptic transmission and other phenomena such as exo- and endocytosis, signal…
Chemical reactions can be induced at a distance due to the propagation of electromagnetic signals during intermediate chemical stages. Although it is well known at optical frequencies, e.g. photosynthetic reactions, electromagnetic signals…
It is widely accepted that population genetics theory is the cornerstone of evolutionary analyses. Empirical tests of the theory, however, are challenging because of the complex relationships between space, dispersal, and evolution.…