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Electrochemical communication is a mechanism that enables intercellular interaction among bacteria within communities. Bacteria achieves synchronization and coordinates collective actions at the population level through the utilization of…
Signal propagation over long distances is a ubiquitous feature of multicellular communities. In biofilms of the bacterium Bacillus subtilis, we recently discovered that some, but not all, cells participate in the propagation of an…
In systems of active programmable matter, individual modules require a constant supply of energy to participate in the system's collective behavior. These systems are often powered by an external energy source accessible by at least one…
Biological systems are known to communicate by diffusing chemical signals in the surrounding medium. However, most of the recent literature has neglected the electron transfer mechanism occurring amongst living cells, and its role in…
Bacteria organize in a variety of collective states, from swarming, which has been attributed to rapid surface exploration, to biofilms, which are highly dense immobile communities attributed to stress resistance. It has been suggested that…
Electrical signals play the primary role in rapid communication among organs, tissues and cells in biosystems. We have analyzed and discussed three phenomena of electrical communication in biosystems, including direction-changing movement…
The bacterium {\em Bacilus subtilis} frequently forms biofilms at the interface between the culture medium and the air. We develop a mathematical model that couples a description of bacteria as individual discrete objects to the standard…
Peristalsis enables transport of the food bolus in the gut. Here, I show by dynamic ex-vivo intra-cellular calcium imaging on living embryonic gut transverse sections that the most primitive form of peristalsis that occurs in the embryo is…
Growing tissue and bacterial colonies are active matter systems where cell divisions and cellular motion generate active stress. Although they operate in the non-equilibrium regime, these biological systems can form large-scale ordered…
Propagating spiral waves have been discovered in various chemical, biological and physical systems. Spiral waves in multicellular organisms are often associated with essential living functions. Although certain eukaryotic microorganisms…
The different active roles of neurons and astrocytes during neuronal activation are associated with the metabolic processes necessary to supply the energy needed for their respective tasks at rest and during neuronal activation. Metabolism,…
Biological signaling is imagined as a combination of activation and transport. The former is triggered by local molecular interactions and the latter is the result of molecular diffusion. However, other fundamental physical principles of…
Bacterial swarming is a rapid mass-migration, in which thousands of cells spread collectively to colonize a surface. Physically, swarming is a natural example of active particles that use energy to generate motion. Accordingly,…
Bacteria are easily characterizable model organisms with an impressively complicated set of capabilities. Among their capabilities is quorum sensing, a detailed cell-cell signaling system that may have a common origin with eukaryotic…
To survive starvation, Bacillus subtilis forms durable spores. After asymmetric cell division, the septum grows around the forespore in a process called engulfment, but the mechanism of force generation is unknown. Here, we derived a novel…
Bacterial colonies growing on surfaces are shaped by mechanical stresses transmitted through the community, governed by the balance between cell growth and steric and cell-substrate interactions. Using overdamped dynamics simulations of…
Bacteria often develop distinct phenotypes to adapt to environmental stress. In particular, they can produce biofilms, dense communities of bacteria that live in a complex extracellular matrix. Bacterial biofilms provide a safe haven from…
Coordinated responses to environmental stimuli are critical for multicellular organisms. To overcome the obstacles of cell-to-cell heterogeneity and noisy signaling dynamics within individual cells, cells must effectively exchange…
Bacterial biofilms collectively develop distinct and ordered structures, including fibers, bundles, and branches. Often, it is unclear how these structural motifs convey specific advantages to bacterial strains under challenging conditions.…
Alterations in the human gut bacteriome can be associated with human health issues, such as type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Both external and internal factors can drive changes in the composition and in the interactions of the…