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The slime mould Physarum polycephalum has emerged as a model for self-organisation and coordination of contractile activity at large spatial scales. This self-organisation largely results from cytoplasmic flows generated by propagating…
The transport of solvent molecules through soft, swollen networks is critical in both natural and engineered systems. While this poroelastic flow has traditionally been explored in networks where the mesh size is comparable to the solvent…
Multi-nucleated cells exist in all domains of life, ranging from animals, plants and fungi to single-celled organisms such as the slime mold Physarum polycephalum. The large cell size, in the case of Physarum reaching centimeters and more,…
We report on the nonlinear mechanical properties of a statistically homogeneous, isotropic semiflexible network cross-linked by polymers containing numerous small unfolding domains, such as the ubiquitous F-actin cross-linker Filamin. We…
Metabolism unfolds within specific organelles in eukaryotic cells. Lysosomes are highly metabolically active organelles, and their metabolic states dynamically influence signal transduction, cellular homeostasis, and organismal…
A DNA-protein complex modelled by a semiflexible chain and an attractive spherical core is studied in the situation when an external stretching force is acting on one end monomer of the chain while the other end monomer is kept fixed in…
Physarum Polycephalum is a unicellular slime mold that has been intensely studied due to its ability to solve mazes, find shortest paths, generate Steiner trees, share knowledge, remember past events, and its applications to unconventional…
Molecular-motor generated active stresses drive the cytoskeleton away from equilibrium, endowing it with tunable mechanical properties that are essential for diverse functions such as cell division and motility[1-5]. Designing analogous…
Intracellular transport is essential for maintaining proper cellular function in most eukaryotic cells, with perturbations in active transport resulting in several types of disease. Efficient delivery of critical cargos to specific…
Collective cell motility plays central roles in various biological phenomena such as inflammatory response, wound healing, cancer metastasis and embryogenesis. These are biological demonstrations of the unjamming transition. However,…
Harnessing the topology of ring polymers as a design motif in functional nanomaterials is becoming a promising direction in the field of soft matter. For example, the ring topology of DNA plasmids prevents the relaxation of excess twist…
The transport of deformable particles through porous media underlies a wealth of applications ranging from filtration to oil recovery to the transport and spreading of biological agents. Using direct numerical simulations, we analyze the…
We present an analytical model for plasmonic enhancement of metal photoluminescence (MPL) in metal nanostructures with characteristic size below the diffraction limit. In such systems, the primary mechanism of MPL enhancement is excitation…
Recent studies suggest that the microbiome can be an important mediator in the effect of a treatment on an outcome. Microbiome data generated from sequencing experiments contain the relative abundance of a large number of microbial taxa…
In this work the computer modeling has been used to show that longer ligands allow biological cells (e.g., blood platelets) to withstand stronger flows after their adhesion to solid walls. Mechanistic model of polymer-mediated…
Effect of molecular crowding and confinement experienced by protein in the cell during unfolding has been studied by modeling a linear polymer chain on a percolation cluster. It is known that internal structure of the cell changes in time,…
Chromatin loop extrusion by Structural Maintenance of Chromosome (SMC) complexes is thought to underlie intermediate-scale chromatin organization inside cells. Motivated by a number of experiments suggesting that nucleosomes may block loop…
Plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum is a large single cell visible by unaided eye. It shows sophisticated behavioural traits in foraging for nutrients and developing an optimal transport network of protoplasmic tubes spanning sources of…
The transition of an epithelial layer from a stationary, quiescent state to a highly migratory, dynamic state is required for wound healing, development, and regeneration. This transition, known as the unjamming transition (UJT), is…
Cellular decision making allows cells to assume functionally different phenotypes in response to microenvironmental cues, without genetic change. It is an open question, how individual cell decisions influence the dynamics at the tissue…