Related papers: Spatial Organization of Phase-separated DNA Drople…
RNA molecules in living cells form what look like liquid droplets formed by liquid/liquid phase separation. But unlike the molecules in conventional phase separating mixtures, RNA molecules are transported by molecular motors that consume…
Just like atoms combine into molecules, colloids can self-organize into predetermined structures according to a set of design principles. Controlling valence -- the number of inter-particle bonds -- is a prerequisite for the assembly of…
DNA nanotechnology uses predictable interactions of nucleic acids to precisely engineer complex nanostructures. Characterizing these self-assembled structures at the single-structure level is crucial for validating their design and…
Understanding the complexity of fragmentation processes is essential for regulating intercellular communication in mechanistic biology and developing novel bottom-up approaches in a large range of multiphase flow processes. In this context,…
We study pattern formation in gels undergoing simultaneous phase separation and orientational ordering. A 2D numerical simulation is performed using a minimal model of nonlinear elasticity with density-anisotropy coupling. For strong…
Proteins and nucleic acids can spontaneously self-assemble into membraneless droplet-like compartments, both in vitro and in vivo. A key component of these droplets are multi-valent proteins that possess several adhesive domains with…
Fluid mixtures, such as the cellular cytoplasm and synthetic DNA nanostars, can spontaneously compartmentalize into many coexisting phases through liquid-liquid phase separation. Despite the diversity of fluid structures that emerge from…
Active forces occurring within cells can drive crucial biological processes that involve spontaneous organization and shape change, such as cell division. Motivated by recent in vitro experiments of nematic droplets of cytoskeletal…
We examine the crystallization dynamics of nanoparticles reversibly tethered by DNA hybridization. We show that the crystallization happens readily only in a narrow temperature "slot," and always proceeds via a two-step process, mediated by…
DNA nanotechnology promises to provide controllable self-assembly on the nanoscale, allowing for the design of static structures, dynamic machines and computational architectures. In this article I review the state-of-the art of DNA…
Active transport of biomolecular condensates and cell migration in collectives are fundamental to development, homeostasis, and processes such as cancer progression, wound healing, and infection response. Yet how these assemblies are…
In recent years significant attention has been attracted to proposals which utilize DNA for nanotechnological applications. Potential applications of these ideas range from the programmable self-assembly of colloidal crystals, to biosensors…
From a nanoscience perspective, cellular processes and their reduced in vitro imitations provide extraordinary examples for highly robust few or single molecule reaction pathways. A prime example are biochemical reactions involving DNA…
We propose a continuum theory of the liquid-liquid phase separation in an elastic network where phase-separated microscopic droplets rich in one fluid component can form as an interplay of fluids mixing, droplet nucleation, network…
Aerobreakup of fluid droplets under the influence of impulsively generated high-speed gas flow using an open-ended shock tube is studied using experiments and numerical simulations. Breakup of mm-sized droplets at high Weber number was…
Phase separation, crucial for spatially segregating biomolecules in cells, is well-understood in the simple case of a few components with pairwise interactions. Yet, biological cells challenge the simple picture in at least two ways: First,…
By equilibrating condensed DNA arrays against reservoirs of known osmotic stress and examining them with several structural probes, it has been possible to achieve a detailed thermodynamic and structural characterization of the change…
Flow-driven rotary motors drive functional processes in human society such as windmills and water wheels. Although examples of such rotary motors also feature prominently in cell biology, their synthetic construction at the nanoscale has…
Self-assembly is traditionally described as the process through which an initially disordered system relaxes towards an equilibrium ordered phase only driven by local interactions between its building blocks. However, This definition is too…
A recent study has demonstrated that phase separation in binary liquid mixtures is arrested in the presence of elastic networks and can lead to a nearly uniformly-sized distribution of the dilute-phase droplets. At longer timescales, these…