Related papers: Vesicle shape transformations driven by confined a…
Fluid-structure interactions between active and passive components are important for many biological systems to function. A particular example is chromatin in the cell nucleus, where ATP-powered processes drive coherent motions of the…
Curvature plays a central role in the proper function of many biological processes. With active matter being a standard framework for understanding many aspects of the physics of life, it is natural to ask what effect curvature has on the…
Pattern formation often occurs in confined systems, yet how boundaries shape patterning dynamics is unclear. We develop techniques to analyze confinement effects in nonlocal advection-diffusion equations, which generically capture the…
Tracking experiments in dense biological tissues reveal a diversity of sources f or local energy injection at the cell scale. The effect of cell motility has been largely studied, but much less is known abo ut the effect of the observed…
The dynamics of geometrically non-linear flexible filaments play an important role in a host of biological processes, from flagella-driven cell transport to the polymeric structure of complex fluids. Such problems have historically been…
In biological tissues, it is now well-understood that mechanical cues are a powerful mechanism for pattern regulation. While much work has focused on interactions between cells and external substrates, recent experiments suggest that cell…
A hydrostatically stressed soft elastic film circumvents the imposed constraint by undergoing a morphological instability, the wavelength of which is dictated by the minimization of the surface and the elastic strain energies of the film.…
We develop a self-consistent free-energy framework in which membrane shape and osmotic pressure are determined simultaneously in a finite reservoir by minimizing bending elasticity and solute entropy. Solute conservation makes osmotic…
Many active fluid systems encountered in biology are set in total geometric confinement. Cytoplasmic streaming in plant cells is a prominent and ubiquitous example, in which cargo-carrying molecular motors move along polymer filaments and…
Small bubbles in fluids raise to the surface due to Archimede's force. Remarkably, in turbulent flows this process is severely hindered by the presence of vortex filaments, which act as moving potential wells, dynamically trapping light…
The dynamics of a flexible filament sedimenting in a viscous fluid are explored analytically and numerically. Compared to the well-studied case of sedimenting rigid rods, the introduction of filament compliance is shown to cause a…
There is now growing evidence of the emergence and biological functionality of liquid crystal features, including nematic order and topological defects, in cellular tissues. However, how such features that intrinsically rely on particle…
We construct a model to explore the hydrodynamic interactions of active inclusions in curved biological membranes. The curved membrane is modelled as a two dimensional layer of highly viscous fluid, surrounded by external solvents of…
Using novel micro-printing techniques, we develop a versatile experimental setup that allows us to study how lateral confinement tames the active flows and defect properties of the microtubule/kinesin active nematic system. We demonstrate…
The investigation of collective behaviour in dense assemblies of self-propelled active particles has been motivated by a wide range of biological phenomena. Of particular interest are dynamical transitions of cellular and sub-cellular…
Understanding dynamical facilitation in nonequilibrium glass-forming systems driven by active forces remains an open challenge. In particular, it is unclear whether facilitation survives in active glasses, where persistent self-propulsion…
Capturing the emergence of deformation waves in contractile living tissues is a challenge that has recently been tackled with models of actively deformable particles. Inspired by the anisotropic deformation of cardiomyocytes in cardiac…
Many vesicles have a spherical resting shape and exposure to fluid flows induces an exchange between sub-optical area and visible (systematic) deformation, while the total area is conserved. The dynamics which controls the exchange between…
Grasping, in both biological and engineered mechanisms, can be highly sensitive to the gripper and object morphology, as well as perception, and motion planning. Here we circumvent the need for feedback or precise planning by using an array…
Living systems are capable of locomotion, reconfiguration, and replication. To perform these tasks, cells spatiotemporally coordinate the interactions of force-generating, "active" molecules that create and manipulate non-equilibrium…