Related papers: Linker-mediated phase behavior of DNA-coated collo…
Different phoretic driving mechanisms have been proposed for the transport of solid or liquid microscopic inclusions in integrated chemical processes. However, the ability to reversibly address both the flow path, rate, and local reactant…
Many recent studies of liquid-liquid phase separation in biology focus on phase separation as a dynamic control mechanism for cellular function, but it can also result in complex mesoscopic structures. We primarily investigate a model…
We study analytically the intricate phase behavior of cross-linked $AB$ diblock copolymer melts, which can undergo two main phase transitions due to quenched random constraints: Gelation, i.e., spatially random localization of polymers…
Colloidal particles can self-assemble into various ordered structures in fluid flows that have potential applications in biomedicine, materials synthesis and encryption. These dynamic processes are also of fundamental interest for probing…
Non-equilibrium selection pressures were proposed for the formation of oligonucleotides with rich functionalities encoded in their sequences, such as catalysis. Since phase separation was shown to direct various chemical processes, we ask…
Phase separation in biomolecular mixtures can result from multiple physical interactions, which may act either complementarily or antagonistically. In the case of protein-nucleic acid mixtures, charge plays a key role but can have…
The cellular cytoplasm is organized into compartments. Phase separation is a simple manner to create membrane-less compartments in order to confine and localize particles like proteins. In many cases these particles are bound to fluctuating…
Phase-separated biomolecular condensates containing proteins and RNAs can assemble into higher-order structures by forming thermodynamically stable interfaces between immiscible phases. Using a minimal model of a protein/RNA interaction…
Proteins often regulate their activities via allostery - or action at a distance - in which the binding of a ligand at one binding site influences the affinity for another ligand at a distal site. Although less studied than in proteins,…
We propose a new toy model of a heteropolymer chain capable of forming planar secondary structures typical for RNA molecules. In this model the sequential intervals between neighboring monomers along a chain are considered as quenched…
Colloidal building blocks with re-configurable shapes and dynamic interactions can exhibit unusual self-assembly behaviors and pathways. In this work, we consider the phase behavior of colloids coated with surface-mobile polymer brushes…
Fractionation is necessary for self-assembly in multicomponent mixtures. Here, reversible fractionation and crystallization are realized and studied in a two-dimensional binary colloids which is supersaturated by enhancing the attraction…
We present a theoretical model for predicting the phase behavior of polymer solutions in which phase separation competes with oligomerization. Specifically, we consider scenarios in which the assembly of polymer chains into stoichiometric…
The mechanism and driving forces of chromosome segregation in the bacterial cell cycle of E. coli is one of the least understood events in its life cycle. Using principles of entropic repulsion between polymer loops confined in a cylinder,…
Fragment-based drug discovery has been an effective paradigm in early-stage drug development. An open challenge in this area is designing linkers between disconnected molecular fragments of interest to obtain chemically-relevant candidate…
Micrometre sized colloidal particles can be viewed as large atoms with tailorable size, shape and interactions. These building blocks can assemble into extremely rich structures and phases, in which the thermal motions of particles can be…
The dynamics of particles interacting by key-lock binding of attached biomolecules are studied theoretically. Examples of such systems include DNA-functionalized colloids as well as nanoparticles grafted with antibodies to cell membrane…
Biomolecular phase separation is typically attributed to the polymer physics of long, disordered chains. However, the underlying chemical grammar, i.e. the specific interactions between protein and RNA building blocks, remains poorly…
Certain sequences of peptoid polymers (synthetic analogs of peptides) assemble into bilayer nanosheets via a nonequilibrium assembly pathway of adsorption, compression, and collapse at an air-water interface. As with other large-scale…
The presence of nanoparticles in a diblock copolymer leads to changes in the morphology and properties of the matrix and can produce highly organized hybrid materials. The resulting material properties depend not only on the polymer…