Related papers: Differences in cell death and division rules can a…
Mechanically active cells in soft media act as force dipoles. The resulting elastic interactions are long-ranged and favor the formation of strings. We show analytically that due to screening, the effective interaction between strings…
Biomembranes wrapping cells and organelles are not only the partitions that separate the insides but also dynamic fields for biological functions accompanied by membrane shape changes. In this review, we discuss the spatiotemporal patterns…
Amyloid beta peptides (A\b{eta}), implicated in Alzheimers disease (AD), interact with the cellular membrane and induce amyloid toxicity. The composition of cellular membranes changes in aging and AD. We designed multi component lipid…
Cellular renewing active matter - assemblies of proliferating and apoptotic cells - underlies tissue homeostasis, morphogenesis, and clonal competition. Previous work in one-dimensional periodic systems identified a fitness advantage…
Interfaces in tissues are ubiquitous, both between tissue and environment as well as between populations of different cell types. The propagation of an interface can be driven mechanically. % e.g. by a difference in the respective…
Recent experiments in various cell types have shown that two-dimensional tissues often display local nematic order, with evidence of extensile stresses manifest in the dynamics of topological defects. Using a mesoscopic model where tissue…
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…
We study the emergence of cell differentiation under the assumption of the existence of a given number of tradeoffs between genes encoding different functions. In the model the viability of colonies is determined by the capability of their…
In this article, I advance the idea that physics plays a central role in cell differentiation and makes fundamental contributions to morphogenesis, revealing the totipotent nature of the zygote. Totipotency is a persistent mechanical memory…
Phase transitions, such as the freezing of water and the magnetisation of a ferromagnet upon lowering the ambient temperature, are familiar physical phenomena. Interestingly, such a collective change of behaviour at a phase transition is…
The conditions under which biological cells switch from a static to a motile state are fundamental to the understanding of many healthy and pathological processes. In this paper, we show that even in the presence of a fully symmetric…
Cell migration is important in many biological processes, including embryonic development, cancer metastasis, and wound healing. In these tissues, a cell's motion is often strongly constrained by its neighbors, leading to glassy dynamics.…
Adhesive cell-substrate interactions are crucial for cell motility and are responsible for the necessary traction that propels cells. These interactions can also change the shape of the cell, analogous to liquid droplet wetting on adhesive…
Although species longevity is subject to a diverse range of selective forces, the mortality curves of a wide variety of organisms are rather similar. We argue that aging and its universal characteristics may have evolved by means of a…
The cytoskeleton is essential for the maintenance of cell morphology in eukaryotes. In fission yeast for example, polarized growth sites are organized by actin whereas microtubules (MT) acting upstream control where growth occurs (La…
Rigidity is an emergent property of materials - it is not a feature of individual components that comprise the structure, but instead arises from interactions between many constituent parts. Recently, it has been recognized that…
Cell neighbor exchanges are integral to tissue rearrangements in biology, including development and repair. Often these processes occur via topological T1 transitions analogous to those observed in foams, grains and colloids. However, in…
Cells in tissues can organize into a broad spectrum of structures according to their function. Drastic changes of organization, such as epithelial-mesenchymal transitions or the formation of spheroidal aggregates, are often associated…
We study theoretically the shapes of biological tubes affected by various pathologies. When epithelial cells grow at an uncontrolled rate, the negative tension produced by their division provokes a buckling instability. Several shapes are…
A living cell uses long tubular appendages for locomotion and sensory purposes. Hence, assembling and maintaining a protrusion of correct length is crucial for its survival and overall performance. Usually the protrusions lack the machinery…