Related papers: Molecular Assembly Lines in Active Droplets

We introduce a simple "patchy particle" model to study the thermodynamics and dynamics of self-assembly of homomeric protein complexes. Our calculations allow us to rationalize recent results for dihedral complexes. Namely, why evolution of…

The ability to design and synthesize ever more complicated colloidal particles opens the possibility of self-assembling a zoo of complex structures, including those with one or more self-limited length scales. An undesirable feature of…

Inside a cell, heterotypic proteins assemble in inhomogeneous, crowded systems where the abundance of these proteins vary with cell types. While some protein complexes form putative structures that can be visualized with imaging, there are…

Self-assembly is traditionally described as the process through which an initially disordered system relaxes towards an equilibrium ordered phase only driven by local interactions between its building blocks. However, This definition is too…

Fabrication of highly ordered and dense nanofibers assemblies is of key importance in designing high-performance and multi-functional materials. In this work, we design an experimental approach in silico, combining shear flow and solvent…

Active nematics are out-of-equilibrium systems in which energy injection at the microscale drives emergent collective behaviors, from spontaneous flows to active turbulence. While the dynamics of these systems have been extensively studied,…

We study the problem of the self-assembly of nanoparticles (NPs) into finite mesoscopic structures with a programmed local morphology and complex overall shape. Our proposed building blocks are NPs directionally-functionalized with DNA. The…

Protein folding is the intricate process by which a linear sequence of amino acids self-assembles into a unique three-dimensional structure. Protein folding kinetics is the study of pathways and time-dependent mechanisms a protein undergoes…

We develop a multi-scale approach to simulate hydrated nanobio systems under realistic condi- tions (e.g., nanoparticles and protein solutions at physiological conditions over time-scales up to hours). We combine atomistic simulations of…

Nanoparticles with "sticky patches" have long been proposed as building blocks for the self-assembly of complex structures. The synthetic realizability of such patchy particles, however, greatly lags behind predictions of patterns they…

Elastic sheets with macroscopic dimensions are easy to deform by bending and stretching. Yet shaping nanometric sheets by mechanical manipulation is hard. Here we show that nanoparticle self-assembly could be used to this end. We…

We use computer simulations to investigate self-assembly in a system of model chaperonin proteins, and in an Ising lattice gas. We discuss the mechanisms responsible for rapid and efficient assembly in these systems, and we use measurements…

Molecular self-assembly on surfaces constitutes a powerful method for creating tailor-made surface structures with dedicated functionalities. Varying the intermolecular interactions allows for tuning the resulting molecular structures in a…

Imagine a robot that can assemble a functional product from the individual parts presented in any configuration to the robot. Designing such a robotic system is a complex problem which presents several open challenges. To bypass these…

Evaporating colloidal droplets have long been used as model systems to understand capillarity, interfacial transport, and particle assembly, most prominently through the coffee ring effect. In classical descriptions, suspended particles are…

Spontaneous mechanical self-assembly of monodisperse bubbles generally leads to disordered foams at low density: producing crystalline structures such as Kelvin foams has proven to be challenging experimentally, despite them being a minimum…

Self-assembly is a key process in living systems - from the microscopic biological level (e.g. assembly of proteins into fibrils within biomolecular condensates in a human cell) through to the macroscopic societal level (e.g. assembly of…

Atomic packing is an important metric for characterizing protein structures, as it significantly influences various features including the stability, the rate of evolution and the functional roles of proteins. Packing in protein structures…

In micro- and nano-scale systems, particles can be moved by using an external force like gravity or a magnetic field. In the presence of adhesive particles that can attach to each other, the challenge is to decide whether a shape is…

We explore the use of templated self-assembly to facilitate the formation of complex target structures made from patchy particles. First, we consider the templating of high-symmetry shell structures around a spherical core particle. We find…