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Cell mechanical functions like locomotion, contraction and division are controlled by the cytoskeleton, a dynamic biopolymer network whose mechanical properties remain poorly understood. We perform single-cell uniaxial stretching…
The rapid worldwide spread of severe viral infections, often involving novel modifications of viruses, poses major challenges to our health care systems. This means that tools that can efficiently and specifically diagnose viruses are much…
Motor proteins are active enzyme molecules that play a crucial role in many biological processes. They transform the chemical energy into the mechanical work and move unidirectionally along rigid cytoskeleton filaments. Single-molecule…
We propose a model for the formation of chromatin loops based on the diffusive sliding of a DNA-bound factor which can dimerise to form a molecular slip-link. Our slip-links mimic the behaviour of cohesin-like molecules, which, along with…
The structure and dynamics of important biological quasi-two-dimensional systems, ranging from cytoskeletal gels to tissues, are controlled by nematic order, flow, defects and activity. Continuum hydrodynamic descriptions combined with…
Living matter moves, deforms, and organizes itself. In cells this is made possible by networks of polymer filaments and crosslinking molecules that connect filaments to each other and that act as motors to do mechanical work on the network.…
Intracellular transport of vesicular cargos, organelles, and other macromolecules is an essential process to move large items through a crowded, and inhomogeneous cellular environment. In an effort to dissect the fundamental effects of…
In many biopolymer solutions, attractive interactions that stabilize finite-sized clusters at low concentrations also promote phase separation at high concentrations. Here we study a model biopolymer system that exhibits the opposite…
Coupling between flow and orientation is a central issue in understanding the collective dynamics of active biofilaments and cells. Active stresses generated by motor activity destroy (quasi-)long-range orientational order and induce…
We use a nanofluidic system to investigate the emergence of thermally driven collective phenomena along a single polymer chain. In our approach, a single DNA molecule is confined in a nanofluidic slit etched with arrays of embedded…
Intracellular transport along microtubules or actin filaments, powered by molecular motors such as kinesins, dyneins or myosins, has been recently modeled using one-dimensional driven lattice gases. We discuss some generalizations of these…
The mechanics of cells is strongly affected by molecular motors that generate forces in the cellular cytoskeleton. We develop a model for cytoskeletal networks driven out of equilibrium by molecular motors exerting transient contractile…
Active materials are those in which individual, uncoordinated local stresses drive the material out of equilibrium on a global scale. Examples of such assemblies can be seen across scales from schools of fish to the cellular cytoskeleton…
We investigate the thermodynamics and kinetics of DNA hairpins that fold/unfold under the action of applied mechanical force. We introduce the concept of the molecular free energy landscape and derive simplified expressions for the force…
Biological assemblies such as chromosomes, membranes, and the cytoskeleton are driven out of equilibrium at the nanoscale by enzymatic activity and molecular motors. Similar non-equilibrium dynamics can be realized in synthetic systems,…
Many cell functions are accomplished thanks to intracellular transport mechanisms of macromolecules along filaments. Molecular motors such as dynein or kinesin are proteins playing a primary role in these processes. The behavior of such…
The alignment of fibers and cells in living tissues affect their mechanical properties and functionality. In this context, one can draw an analogy between tissues and nematic liquid crystal elastomers. We explore this analogy by growing…
Contractile forces are essential for many developmental processes involving cell shape change and tissue deformation. Recent experiments on reconstituted actomyosin networks, the major component of the contractile machinery, have shown that…
A continuum description is essential for understanding a variety of collective phenomena in active matter. However, building quantitative continuum models of active matter from first principles can be extremely challenging due to both the…
The looping of polymers such as DNA is a fundamental process in the molecular biology of living cells, whose interior is characterised by a high degree of molecular crowding. We here investigate in detail the looping dynamics of flexible…