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Colloidal magnetic particles embedded in an elastic polymer matrix constitute a smart material called ferrogel. It responds to an applied external magnetic field by changes in elastic properties, which can be exploited for various…
Active networks made of biopolymers and motor proteins are valuable bioinspired systems that have been used in the last decades to study the cytoskeleton and its self-organization under mechanical stimulation. Different techniques are…
The interactions between cells and the extracellular matrix are vital for the self-organisation of tissues. In this paper we present proof-of-concept to use machine learning tools to predict the role of this mechanobiology in the…
The study of granular crystals, metamaterials that consist of closely packed arrays of particles that interact elastically, is a vibrant area of research that combines ideas from disciplines such as materials science, nonlinear dynamics,…
In living cells, molecular motors create activity that enhances the diffusion of particles throughout the cytoplasm, and not just ones attached to the motors. We demonstrate initial steps toward creating artificial cells that mimic this…
Chemical crosslinking of collagen is a general strategy to reproduce macroscale tissue properties in physiological environment. However, simultaneous control of protein conformation, material properties and biofunctionality is highly…
High-strength composite hydrogels cellulose-polyacrylamide were synthesized by free-radical polymerization of acrylamide conducted inside the previously formed physical network of regenerated plant cellulose. Partial hydrolysis of the amide…
We present a continuum model trained on molecular dynamics (MD) simulations for cellular membranes composed of an arbitrary number of lipid types. The model is constructed within the formalism of dynamic density functional theory and can be…
Mesoscale molecular assemblies on the cell surface, such as cilia and filopodia, integrate information, control transport and amplify signals. Synthetic devices mimicking these structures could sensitively monitor these cellular functions…
Hydrogels engineered for medical use within the human body need to be delivered in a minimally invasive fashion without altering their biochemical and mechanical properties to maximize their therapeutic outcomes. In this regard, key…
Collocated tactile sensing is a fundamental enabling technology for dexterous manipulation. However, deformable sensors introduce complex dynamics between the robot, grasped object, and environment that must be considered for fine…
Modeling membrane interactions with arbitrarily shaped colloidal particles, such as environmental micro- and nanoplastics, at the cell scale remains particularly challenging, owing to the complexity of particle geometries and the need to…
Due to the complex physical properties of granular materials, research on robot learning for manipulating such materials predominantly either disregards the consideration of their physical characteristics or uses surrogate models to…
Hysterons are elementary units of hysteresis that underlie many complex behaviors of non-equilibrium matter. Because models of interacting hysterons can describe disordered matter, this suggests that artificial systems could respond to…
The cells and tissues that make up our body juggle contradictory mechanical demands. It is crucial for their survival to be able to withstand large mechanical loads, but it is equally crucial for them to produce forces and actively change…
Magnetic gels with embedded micro/nano-sized magnetic particles in crosslinked polymer networks can be actuated by external magnetic fields, with changes in their internal microscopic structures and macroscopic mechanical properties. We…
Entangled matter displays unusual and attractive properties and mechanisms: tensile strength, capabilities for assembly and disassembly, damage tolerance. While some of the attributes and mechanisms share some traits with traditional…
Magic Sand, a hydrophobic toy granular material, is widely used in popular science instructions because of its non-intuitive mechanical properties. A detailed study of the failure of an underwater column of magic sand shows that these…
Catch bonds are interactions whose lifetimes increase under mechanical load, a counterintuitive behaviour that underlies diverse biological processes. Translating this mechanism to synthetic materials offers the potential to create systems…
Active metamaterials are a type of metamaterial with tunable properties enabled by structural reconfigurations. Existing active metamaterials often achieve only a limited number of structural reconfigurations upon the application of an…