Related papers: Geometric effects induce anomalous size-dependent …
In the transport studies of topological insulators, microflakes exfoliated from bulk single crystals are often used because of the convenience in sample preparation and the accessibility to high carrier mobilities. Here, based on finite…
In biological systems, molecular-scale forces and motions are pivotal for enabling processes like motility, shape change, and replication. These forces and motions are organized, amplified, and transmitted across macroscopic scales by…
We show that transport in the presence of entropic barriers exhibits peculiar characteristics which makes it distinctly different from that occurring through energy barriers. The constrained dynamics yields a scaling regime for the particle…
The cell cytoskeleton is a striking example of "active" medium driven out-of-equilibrium by ATP hydrolysis. Such activity has been shown recently to have a spectacular impact on the mechanical and rheological properties of the cellular…
I consider how cell shape and environmental geometry affect the rate of nutrient capture and the consequent maximum growth rate of a cell, focusing on rod-like species like \textit{E.\ coli}. Simple modeling immediately implies that it is…
We review recent results on the anomalous transport in one-dimensional and quasi-one-dimensional systems with bulk and surface disorder. Main attention is paid to the role of long-range correlations in random potentials for the bulk…
Heterogeneous growth plays an important role in the shape and pattern formation of thin elastic structures ranging from the petals of blooming lilies to the cell walls of growing bacteria. Here we address the stability and regulation of…
Migratory and tissue resident cells exhibit highly branched morphologies to perform their function and to adapt to the microenvironment. Immune cells, for example, display transient branched shapes while exploring the surrounding tissues.…
Bacteria can exploit mechanics to display remarkable plasticity in response to locally changing physical and chemical conditions. Compliant structures play a striking role in their taxis behavior, specifically for navigation inside complex…
Immotile microbes inhabit nearly every environment on Earth, from soils and sediments to food matrices -- yet how they disperse through these physically confining environments is poorly understood. Here, we show that immotile microbial…
It is well established that a wide variety of phenomena in cellular and molecular biology involve anomalous transport e.g. the statistics for the motility of cells and molecules are fractional and do not conform to the archetypes of simple…
Numerous experimental studies have demonstrated that the microenvironment is a key regulator influencing the proliferative and migrative potentials of species. Spatial and temporal disturbances lead to adverse and hazardous…
Biological cells embedded in fibrous matrices have been observed to form inter-cellular bands of dense and aligned fibers, through which they mechanically interact over long distances. Such matrix-mediated cellular interactions have been…
In their search for metabolic resources microbes swim through viscous environments that present physical anisotropies, including steric obstacles across a wide range of sizes. Hydrodynamic forces are known to significantly alter swimmer…
Variability of motility behavior in populations of microbiological agents is a ubiquitous phenomenon even in the case of genetically identical cells. Accordingly, passive objects introduced into such biological systems and driven by them…
Many transport processes in nature take place on substrates, often considered as unidimensional lanes. These unidimensional substrates are typically non-static: affected by a fluctuating environment, they can undergo conformational changes.…
Controlling the self-assembly of supramolecular structures is vital for living cells, and a central challenge for engineering at the nano- and microscales. Nevertheless, even particles without optimized shapes can robustly form well-defined…
For biologically relevant macromolecules such as intrinsically disordered proteins, internal degrees of freedom that allow for shape changes have a large influence on both the motion and function of the compound. A detailed understanding of…
Understanding mixing and transport of passive scalars in active fluids is important to many natural (e.g. algal blooms) and industrial (e.g. biofuel, vaccine production) processes. Here, we study the mixing of a passive scalar (dye) in…
One striking feature of bacterial motion is their ability to swim upstream along corners and crevices, by leveraging hydrodynamic interactions. This motion through anatomic ducts or medical devices might be at the origin of serious…