Related papers: Controlling the shape and topology of two-componen…
We study the effect of membrane proteins on the shape, composition and thermodynamic stability of the surrounding membrane. When the coupling between membrane composition and curvature is strong enough the nearby composition and shape both…
The assembly of curved protein rods on fluid membranes is studied using implicit-solvent meshless membrane simulations. As the rod curvature increases, the rods on a membrane tube assemble along the azimuthal direction first and…
Uncovering the rules governing the nonequilibrium dynamics of the membranes that define biological cells is of central importance to understanding the physics of living systems. We theoretically and computationally investigate the behavior…
Connecting cell behavior to tissue shape and mechanics is a key challenge in the physics of morphogenesis. Cytoskeletal turnover precludes a fixed reference state, and tensions are actively generated independently of strain; so conventional…
The physics of behavior seeks simple descriptions of animal behavior. The field has advanced rapidly by using techniques in low dimensional dynamics distilled from computer vision. Yet, we still do not generally understand the rules which…
Motivated by recent experimental findings in chemical synthesis of colloidal particles, we draw an analogy between self-assembly processes occurring in biological systems (e.g. protein folding) and a new exciting possibility in the field of…
We elucidate the molecular forces leading to assembly of two dimensional membrane-like structures composed of a one rod-length thick monolayer of aligned rods from an immiscible suspension of hard rods and depleting polymers. We perform…
The design of complex materials and the formation of specific patterns often arise from the properties of the individual building blocks. In this respect, colloidal systems offer a unique opportunity because nowadays they can be synthesized…
The yet virtually unexplored class of soft colloidal rods with small aspect ratio is investigated and shown to exhibit a very rich phase and dynamic behavior, spanning from liquid to nearly melt state. Instead of nematic order, these short…
A phenomenological Landau elasticity for the shape, dilation, and lipid-tilt of bilayer membranes is developed. The shape mode couples with the sum of the monolayers' tilt, while the dilation mode couples with the difference of the…
We study the spatiotemporal patterns that emerge when an active nematic film is topologically constraint. These topological constraints allow to control the non-equilibrium dynamics of the active system. We consider ellipsoidal shapes for…
We propose a model that accounts for the budding transition of asymmetric two-component lipid domains, where the two monolayers (leaflets) have different average compositions controlled by independent chemical potentials. Assuming a…
Cells offer numerous inspiring examples where proteins and membranes combine to form complex structures that are key to intracellular compartmentalization, cargo transport, and specialization of cell morphology. Despite this wealth of…
Short DNA linkers are increasingly being exploited for driving specific self-assembly of Brownian objects. DNA-functionalised colloids can assemble into ordered or amorphous materials with tailored morphology. Recently, the same approach…
Lipid vesicles are known to undergo complex conformational transitions, but it remains challenging to systematically characterize non-equilibrium membrane shape dynamics. Here, we report the direct observation of lipid vesicle relaxation…
When colloidal particles are vertically confined to a gap of between 1.3-1.6 particle diameters, they pack into buckled crystals of particles in either "up" or "down" states. Neighboring particles tend to occupy opposite states, analogous…
Mammalian tissues contain networks and ordered arrays of collagen fibrils originating from the periodic self-assembly of helical 300 nm long tropocollagen complexes. The fibril radius is typically between 25 to 250 nm, and tropocollagen at…
Non-equilibrium dynamics of topological defects can be used as a fundamental propulsion mechanism in microscopic active matter. Here, we demonstrate swimming of topological defect-propelled colloidal particles in (passive) nematic fluids…
We study colloidal gels formed by competing electrostatic repulsion and short-range attraction by means of extensive numerical simulations under external shear. We show that, upon varying the repulsion strength, the gel structure and its…
Multi-step pathways, constituted of a sequence of reconfigurations, are central to a wide variety of natural and man-made systems. Such pathways autonomously execute in self-guided processes such as protein folding and self-assembly, but…