Related papers: Controlling Organization and Forces in Active Matt…
We propose a two-dimensional model for the organization of stabilized microtubules driven by molecular motors in an unconfined geometry. In this model two kinds of dynamics are competing. The first one is purely diffusive, with an…
Active systems are driven out of equilibrium by exchanging energy and momentum with their environment. This endows them with anomalous mechanical properties that we review in this colloquium for the case of dry scalar active matter, which…
The cytoskeleton relies on diverse populations of motors, filaments, and binding proteins acting in concert to enable non-equilibrium processes ranging from mitosis to chemotaxis. Its versatile reconfigurability, programmed by interactions…
Active biological flow networks pervade nature and span a wide range of scales, from arterial blood vessels and bronchial mucus transport in humans to bacterial flow through porous media or plasmodial shuttle streaming in slime molds.…
When interacting motile units self-organize into flocks, they realize one of the most robust ordered state found in nature. However, after twenty five years of intense research, the very mechanism controlling the ordering dynamics of both…
In nature, excitable reaction-diffusion systems found in diverse settings (e.g. chemical reactions, metal rust, yeast, amoeba, heart, brain) generate geometrically similar macroscopic waves(1,2). For the heart and brain, the spatiotemporal…
In active matter systems, deformable boundaries provide a mechanism to organize internal active stresses and perform work on the external environment. To study a minimal model of such a system, we perform particle-based simulations of an…
Living soft tissues appear to promote the development and maintenance of a preferred mechanical state within a defined tolerance around a so-called set-point. This phenomenon is often referred to as mechanical homeostasis. In contradiction…
Self-propulsion and navigation due to the sensing of environmental conditions - such as durotaxis and chemotaxis - are remarkable properties of biological cells that cannot be reproduced by single-component self-propelled particles. We…
A hallmark of living systems is the ability to employ a common set of versatile building blocks that can self-organize into a multitude of different structures, in a way that can be controlled with minimal cost. This capability can only be…
Recent experiments on active materials, such as dense bacterial suspensions and microtubule-kinesin motor mixtures, show a promising potential for achieving self-sustained flows. However, to develop active microfluidics it is necessary to…
Active systems across scales, ranging from molecular machines to human crowds, are usually modeled as assemblies of self-propelled particles driven by internally generated forces. However, these models often assume memoryless dynamics and…
Bacterial cellulose is an important class of biomaterials which can be grown in well-controlled laboratory and industrial conditions. The cellulose structure is affected by several biological, chemical and environmental factors, including…
Biomaterial systems have allowed for the in vitro production of complex, emergent tissue behaviors that were not possible with conventional 2D culture systems allowing for analysis of the normal development as well as disease processes. We…
We find a statistical mechanism that can adjust orientations of intracellular filaments to cell geometry in absence of organizing centers. The effect is based on random and isotropic filament (de-)polymerization dynamics and is independent…
The cytoskeleton is a model active matter system that controls diverse cellular processes from division to motility. While both active actomyosin dynamics and actin-microtubule interactions are key to the cytoskeleton's versatility and…
Biomembranes wrapping cells and organelles are not only the partitions that separate the insides but also dynamic fields for biological functions accompanied by membrane shape changes. In this review, we discuss the spatiotemporal patterns…
In multicellular organisms, relations among parts and between parts and the whole are contextual and interdependent. These organisms and their cells are ontogenetically linked: an organism starts as a cell that divides producing…
Self-propelled colloidal objects, such as motile bacteria or synthetic microswimmers, have microscopically irreversible individual dynamics - a feature they share with all living systems. The incoherent behaviour of individual swimmers can…
We use moving light patterns to control the motion of {\it Escherichia coli} bacteria whose motility is photo-activated. Varying the pattern speed controls the magnitude and direction of the bacterial flux, and therefore the accumulation of…