Related papers: Biofilm self-patterning: mechanical forces drive a…
To provide insight into the basic properties of emerging structures when bacteria or other microorganisms conquer surfaces, it is crucial to analyze their growth behavior during the formation of thin films. In this regard, many theoretical…
Biological organisms often have elongated, flexible structures with some degree of chirality in their bodies or movements. In nature, these organisms frequently take advantage of self-encapsulation mechanisms that create folded…
In this article we highlight chemotaxis (cellular movement) as a rich source of potential engineering applications and computational models, highlighting current research and possible future work. We first give a brief description of the…
With exquisite precision and reproducibility, cells orchestrate the cooperative action of thousands of nanometer-sized molecular motors to carry out mechanical tasks at much larger length scales, such as cell motility, division and…
Microscopic organisms, such as bacteria, have the ability of colonizing surfaces and developing biofilms that can determine diseases and infections. Most bacteria secrete a significant amount of extracellular polymer substances that are…
Bacterial chromosome replication occurs in the absence of a canonical spindle apparatus; yet it reliably produces organised and segregated genomes. While both passive and active mechanisms have been investigated, DNA replication itself is a…
Dense assemblies of self propelled particles, also known as active or living glasses are abundantaround us, covering different length and time scales: from the cytoplasm to tissues, from bacterialbio-films to vehicular traffic jams, from…
Active forces occurring within cells can drive crucial biological processes that involve spontaneous organization and shape change, such as cell division. Motivated by recent in vitro experiments of nematic droplets of cytoskeletal…
Bacteria are prolific at colonizing diverse surfaces under a widerange of environmental conditions, and exhibit fascinating examples of self-organization across scales. Though it has recently attracted considerable interest, the role of…
Active matter systems such as eukaryotic cells and bacteria continuously transform chemical energy to motion. Hence living systems exert active stresses on the complex environments in which they reside. One recurring aspect of this…
Eukaryotic cells and intracellular pathogens such as bacteria or viruses utilize the actin polymerization machinery to propel themselves forward. Thereby, the onset of motion and choice of direction may be the result of a spontaneous…
Self-organization is the generation of order out of local interactions in non-equilibrium [1]. It is deeply connected to all fields of science from physics, chemistry to biology where functional living structures self-assemble[2] and…
Many cellular processes require a polarization axis which generally initially emerges as an inhomogeneous distribution of molecular markers in the cell. We present a simple analytical model of a general mechanism of cell polarization taking…
There is significant interest in modelling the mechanics and physics of growth of soft biological systems such as tumors and bacterial biofilms. Solid tumors account for more than 85% of cancer mortality and bacterial biofilms account for a…
Chirality organize living and active matter systems into striking collective states, yet the principles that govern chiral ordering in open systems, where elements are continuously added or removed, remain unclear. A mutant strain of…
Biofilms are communities of bacteria that exhibit a multitude of multiscale biomechanical behaviors. Recent experimental advances have lead to characterizations of these behaviors in terms of measurements of the viscoelastic moduli of…
How particles are deposited at the edge of evaporating droplets, i.e. the {\em coffee ring} effect, plays a crucial role in phenomena as diverse as thin-film deposition, self-assembly, and biofilm formation. Recently, microorganisms have…
The ability of many living systems to actively self-propel underlies critical biomedical, environmental, and industrial processes. While such active transport is well-studied in uniform settings, environmental complexities such as geometric…
Certain bacteria form filamentous colonies when the cells fail to separate after dividing. In Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus thermus, and cyanobacteria, the filaments can wrap into complex supercoiled structures as the cells grow. The…
Microcolonies are aggregates of a few dozen to a few thousand cells exhibited by many bacteria. The formation of microcolonies is a crucial step towards the formation of more mature bacterial communities known as biofilms, but also marks a…