Related papers: Spontaneous Domain Formation in Spherically-Confin…

The formation of normal-state domains in type-I superconducting indium films is investigated using the high resolution magneto-optical imaging technique. The observed patterns consist of coexisting circular and lamellar normal-phase domains…

Capillary thinning of polymeric fluids is central to biological and industrial processes, yet the mechanisms governing thinning dynamics remain unresolved, especially for semi-flexible polymers. Using ideal solutions of semi-flexible DNA,…

Liquid crystals can self-organize into a layered smectic phase. While the smectic layers are typically straight forming a lamellar pattern in bulk, external confinement may drastically distort the layers due to the boundary conditions…

Previous self-assembly experiments on a model icosahedral plant virus have shown that, under physiological conditions, capsid proteins initially bind to the genome through an en masse mechanism and form nucleoprotein complexes in a…

Entangled states are ubiquitous amongst fibrous materials, whether naturally occurring (keratin, collagen, DNA) or synthetic (nanotube assemblies, elastane). A key mechanical characteristic of these systems is their ability to reorganise in…

This paper aims at a comprehensive understanding on the novel elastic property of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) discovered very recently through single-molecule manipulation techniques. A general elastic model for double-stranded biopolymers…

A collection of thin structures buckle, bend, and bump into each-other when confined. This contact can lead to the formation of patterns: hair will self-organize in curls; DNA strands will layer into cell nuclei; paper, when crumpled, will…

The coat proteins of many viruses spontaneously form icosahedral capsids around nucleic acids or other polymers. Elucidating the role of the packaged polymer in capsid formation could promote biomedical efforts to block viral replication…

Lasers based on biological materials are attracting an increasing interest in view of their use in integrated and transient photonics. DNA as optical biopolymer in combination with highly-emissive dyes has been reported to have excellent…

We present Brownian dynamics simulations of the facilitated diffusion of a protein, modelled as a sphere with a binding site on its surface, along DNA, modelled as a semi-flexible polymer. We consider both the effect of DNA organisation in…

The packaging of genetic material within a protein shell, called the capsid, marks a pivotal step in the life cycle of numerous single-stranded RNA viruses. Understanding how hundreds, or even thousands, of proteins assemble around the…

Flow-driven rotary motors drive functional processes in human society such as windmills and water wheels. Although examples of such rotary motors also feature prominently in cell biology, their synthetic construction at the nanoscale has…

We observe regular patterns emerging across multiple length scales with high-concentration DNA solutions in microfluidic pillar arrays at low Reynolds numbers and high Deborah. Interacting vortices between pillars lead to long-range order…

We have discovered an optically uniform type of domain that occurs in Twisted Nematic (TN) cells that are constructed from substrates chemically patterned with stripes via microcontact printing of Self-Assembled Monolayers (SAM); such…

For short DNA molecules in crowded environments, we evaluate macroscopic parameters such as the average end-to-end distance and the twist conformation by tuning the strength of the site specific confinement driven by the crowders. The…

DNA toroids are compact torus-shaped bundles formed by one or multiple DNA molecules being condensed from the solution due to various condensing agents. It has been shown that the DNA toroidal bundles are twisted. However, the global…

We study numerically the mechanical stability and elasticity properties of duplex DNA molecules within the frame of a network model incorporating microscopic degrees of freedom related with the arrangement of the base pairs. We pay special…

Driven dissipative systems at ambient conditions typically exhibit continuous responses shaped by fluctuations and relaxation, with discrete macroscopic states arising only under specific dynamical constraints. Here, we report the emergence…

The folding transition of biopolymers from the coil to compact structures has attracted wide research interest in the past and is well studied in polymer physics. Recent seminal works on DNA in confined devices have shown that these long…

Understanding and controlling the rheology of polymeric complex fluids that are pushed out-of-equilibrium is a fundamental problem in both industry and biology. For example, to package, repair, and replicate DNA, cells use enzymes to…