Related papers: A biophysical threshold for biofilm formation
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…
The transition from localized to systemic spreading of bacteria, viruses and other agents is a fundamental problem that spans medicine, ecology, biology and agriculture science. We have conducted experiments and simulations in a simple…
Droplet formation has emerged as an essential concept for the spatiotemporal organisation of biomolecules in cells. However, classical descriptions of droplet dynamics based on passive liquid-liquid phase separation cannot capture the…
Equations of motion that recognize biochemical patterns are described. The equations are partial differential equations in a continuous multiple component system in which adequate initial and boundary conditions are given. The biochemical…
Bacterial assemblies exhibit rich collective behaviors that control their biological functions, making them a relevant object of study from an active matter physics perspective. Dense bacterial suspensions self-organize into distinct…
The biomolecules in and around a living cell -- proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, carbohydrates -- continuously sample myriad conformational states that are thermally accessible at physiological temperatures. Simultaneously, a given…
We propose and analyze a model for antibiotic resistance transfer in a bacterial biofilm and examine antibiotic dosing strategies that are effective in bacterial elimination. In particular, we consider a 1-D model of a biofilm with…
Densely packed, motile bacteria can adopt collective states not seen in conventional, passive materials. These states remain in many ways mysterious, and their physical characterization can aid our understanding of natural bacterial…
To advance understanding of cellular metabolism and reduce batch-to-batch variability in cell culture processes, this study introduces a multi-scale hybrid modeling framework designed to simulate and predict the dynamic behavior of CHO cell…
Nutrient gradients and limitations play a pivotal role in the life of all microbes, both in their natural habitat as well as in artificial, microfluidic systems. Spatial concentration gradients of nutrients in densely packed cell…
In processes such as embryo shaping, wound healing, and malignant cell invasion, epithelial cells transition between dispersed phases, where the cells move independently, and condensed phases, where they aggregate and deform to close gaps,…
In this paper, we derive upscaled equations for modelling biofilm growth in porous media. The resulting macro-scale mathematical models consider permeable multi-species biofilm including water flow, transport, detachment and reactions. The…
Assembly theory predicts that a distinguishing signature of life is its ability to produce complex molecules in abundance, opening new possibilities for life detection. Experimental validation of this approach has so far relied on abiotic…
The formation of condensates is now considered as a major organization principle of eukaryotic cells. Several studies have recently shown that the properties of these condensates are affected by enzymatic reactions. We propose here a simple…
Biological active materials such as bacterial biofilms and eukaryotic cells thrive in confined micro-spaces. Here, we show through numerical simulations that confinement can serve as a mechanical guidance to achieve distinct modes of…
Biological systems perform an astonishing array of dynamical processes -- including development and repair, regulation, behavior and motor control, sensing and signaling, and adaptation, among others. Powered by the transduction of stored…
Locomotion is essential for living cells. It enables bacteria and algae to explore space for food, cancer to spread, and immune system to fight infections. Motile cells display trajectories of intriguing complexity, from regular (e.g.…
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…
Cell polarization plays a central role in the development of complex organisms. It has been recently shown that cell polarization may follow from the proximity to a phase separation instability in a bistable network of chemical reactions.…
Multicellular collective migration is a ubiquitous strategy of cells to translocate spatially in diverse tissue environments to accomplish a wide variety of biological phenomena, viz. embryonic development, wound healing, and tumor…