Related papers: Dynamic and programmable cellular-scale granules e…
Granular media (e.g., cereal grains, plastic resin pellets, and pills) are ubiquitous in robotics-integrated industries, such as agriculture, manufacturing, and pharmaceutical development. This prevalence mandates the accurate and efficient…
Biomimetic hydrogels based on natural polymers are a promising class of biomaterial, mimicking the natural extra-cellular matrix of biological tissues and providing cues for cell attachment, proliferation and differentiation. With a view to…
UV-cured collagen-based hydrogels hold promise in skeletal muscle regeneration due to their soft elastic properties and porous architecture. However, the complex triple helix conformation of collagen and environmental conditions, i.e.…
The dynamics of cellular pattern formation is crucial for understanding embryonic development and tissue morphogenesis. Recent studies have shown that human dermal fibroblasts cultured on liquid crystal elastomers can exhibit an increase in…
Bacterial cellulose biofilms are complex networks of strong interwoven nanofibers that control transport and protect bacterial colonies in the film. Design of diverse applications of bacterial cellulose films also relies on understanding…
Contraction assay based on surface measurement have been widely used to evaluate cell contractility in 3D models. This method is straightforward and requires no specific equipment, but it does not provide quantitative data about contraction…
Microscale hydrogels comprised of macromolecular networks have increasingly been used for applications involving cell encapsulation, tissue engineering and for the storage and release of active cargo molecules. However, the majority of such…
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…
A fungal skin is a thin flexible sheet of a living homogeneous mycelium made by a filamentous fungus. The skin could be used in future living architectures of adaptive buildings and as a sensing living skin for soft self-growing/adaptive…
Mechanical metamaterials leverage geometric design to achieve unconventional properties, such as high strength at low density, efficient wave guiding, and complex shape morphing. The ability to control shape changes builds on the complex…
Traditional top-down robotic design often lacks the adaptability needed to handle real-world complexities, prompting the need for more flexible approaches. Therefore, this study introduces a novel cellular plasticity model tailored for…
Substrate engineering for steering cell growth is a wide and well-established area of research in the field of modern biotechnology. Here we introduce a micromachining technique to pattern an inert, transparent polymer matrix blended with a…
Magnetic-responsive composites that consist of soft matrix embedded with hard-magnetic particles have recently been demonstrated as robust soft active materials for fast-transforming actuation. However, the deformation of the functional…
Above a critical concentration a wide variety of peptides and proteins self-assemble into amyloid fibrils which entangle to form percolating networks called hydrogels. Such hydrogels have important applications as biomaterials and in…
Recent results from high-resolution solar granulation observations indicate the existence of a population of small granular cells that are smaller than 600 km in diameter. These small convective cells strongly contribute to the total area…
The design of photo-active collagen systems is presented as a basis for establishing biomimetic materials with varied network architecture and programmable macroscopic properties. Following in-house isolation of type I collagen, reaction…
In this work, we aim to teach robots to manipulate various thin-shell materials. Prior works studying thin-shell object manipulation mostly rely on heuristic policies or learn policies from real-world video demonstrations, and only focus on…
Structures with artificial mechanical properties, often called mechanical metamaterials, exhibit divergent yet tunable performance. Various types of mechanical metamaterials have been proposed, which harness light or magnetic interactions,…
Acoustic metamaterials are artificial structures, often lattice of resonators, with unusual properties. They can be engineered to stop wave propagation in specific frequency bands. Once manufactured, their dispersive qualities remain…
Soft-granular media, such as dense emulsions, foams or tissues, exhibit either fluid- or solid-like properties depending on the applied external stresses. Whereas bulk rheology of such materials has been thoroughly investigated, the…