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Animal morphogenesis involves complex tissue deformation processes, which require tight control over tissue rheology. Yet, it remains insufficiently understood how tissue rheology results from the interplay between cellular packing and…
The system of polymers in solvent mixtures is a widely-used model to represent biomolecular condensates in intracellular environments. Here, we apply a variational theory to control the center-of-mass of two polymers and perform the first…
The structural diversity of the solute molecules involved in biomolecular processes necessitates the characterization of the forces between charged macromolecules beyond the point-ion description. From the field theoretic partition function…
Cell migration is a fundamental process underlying the survival and function of both unicellular and multicellular organisms. Crawling motility in eukaryotic cells arises from cyclic protrusion and retraction driven by the cytoskeleton,…
The proper positioning of the mitotic spindle is crucial for asymmetric cell division and generating cell diversity during development. Proper position in the single-cell embryo of Caenorhabditis elegans is achieved initially by the…
We predict the structural interaction of crystalline solid-melt interfaces using amplitude equations which are derived from classical density functional theory or phase-field-crystal modeling. The solid ordering decays exponentially on the…
Cell membranes interact with a myriad of curvature-active proteins that control membrane morphology and are responsible for mechanosensation and mechanotransduction. Some of these proteins, such as those containing BAR domains, are curved…
Contact inhibition plays a crucial role in the motility of cells, the process of wound healing, and the formation of tumors. By mimicking the mechanical motion of calls crawling on a substrate using a pseudopod, we constructed a minimal…
The cellular environment, characterized by its intricate composition and spatial organization, hosts a variety of organelles, ranging from membrane-bound ones to membraneless structures that are formed through liquid-liquid phase…
The cellular cytoskeleton is an active material, driven out of equilibrium by molecular motor proteins. It is not understood how the collective behaviors of cytoskeletal networks emerge from the properties of the network's constituent motor…
Cells self-organize into functional, ordered structures during tissue morphogenesis, a process that is evocative of colloidal self-assembly into engineered soft materials. Understanding how inter-cellular mechanical interactions may drive…
The interplay of membrane proteins is vital for many biological processes, such as cellular transport, cell division, and signal transduction between nerve cells. Theoretical considerations have led to the idea that the membrane itself…
Experiments show that the movement of eukaryotic cells is regulated by a process of phase separation of two competing enzymes on the cell membrane, that effectively amplifies shallow external gradients of chemical attractant. Notably, the…
Topological entanglements severely interfere with important biological processes. For this reason, genomes must be kept unknotted and unlinked during most of a cell cycle. Type II Topoisomerase (TopoII) enzymes play an important role in…
Blob-filaments (or simply 'blobs') are coherent structures formed by turbulence and sustained by nonlinear processes in the edge and scrape-off layer (SOL) of tokamaks and other magnetically confined plasmas. The dynamics of these…
How genes affect tissue scale organization remains a longstanding biological puzzle. As experimental efforts aim to quantify gene expression, chromatin organization, cellular structure, and tissue structure, computational modeling lags…
A single solid tumor, composed of nearly identical cells, exhibits heterogeneous dynamics. Cells dynamics in the core is glass-like whereas those in the periphery undergo diffusive or super-diffusive behavior. Quantification of…
Biopolymer Networks play an important role in coordinating and regulating collective cellular dynamics via a number of signaling pathways. Here, we investigate the mechanical response of a model biopolymer network due to the active…
Living systems are capable of locomotion, reconfiguration, and replication. To perform these tasks, cells spatiotemporally coordinate the interactions of force-generating, "active" molecules that create and manipulate non-equilibrium…
Neuronal function requires precise spatial organization of mitochondria to meet localized energetic demand. However, the physical constraints governing mitochondrial transport in axons remain poorly defined. Bidirectional motor-driven…