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Cells and tissues exert forces and can actively change shape. This strikingly autonomous behavior is powered by the cytoskeleton, which includes an active gel of actin filaments, crosslinks, and myosin molecular motors. Although individual…
Multistability-induced hysteresis has been widely studied in mechanical systems, but such behavior has proven more difficult to reproduce experimentally in flow networks. Natural flow networks like animal and plant vasculature can exhibit…
Mesh-like structures, such as mucus gel or cytoskeleton networks, are ubiquitous in biological systems. These intricate structures are composed of cross-linked, semi-flexible bio-filaments, crucial to numerous biological processes. In many…
Vascular networks play a key role in the development, function, and survival of many organisms, facilitating transport of nutrients and other critical factors within and between systems. The development of these vessel networks has been…
The mechanics of cells is strongly affected by molecular motors that generate forces in the cellular cytoskeleton. We develop a model for cytoskeletal networks driven out of equilibrium by molecular motors exerting transient contractile…
Transport networks are crucial to the functioning of natural and technological systems. Nature features transport networks that are adaptive over a vast range of parameters, thus providing an impressive level of robustness in supply.…
Tracking experiments in dense biological tissues reveal a diversity of sources f or local energy injection at the cell scale. The effect of cell motility has been largely studied, but much less is known abo ut the effect of the observed…
Plants create sugar in the mesophyll cells of their leaves by photosynthesis. This sugar, mostly sucrose, has to be loaded via the bundle sheath into the phloem vascular system (the sieve elements), where it is distributed to growing parts…
Life and functioning of higher organisms depends on the continuous supply of metabolites to tissues and organs. What are the requirements on the transport network pervading a tissue to provide a uniform supply of nutrients, minerals, or…
Plasmodium of acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum exhibits traits of wave-like behaviour. The plasmodium's behaviour can be finely tuned in laboratory experiments by using herbal tablets. A single tablet acts as a fixed attractor:…
Many cells face search problems, such as finding food, mates or shelter, where their success depends on their search strategy. In contrast to other unicellular organisms, the slime mold Physarum polycephalum forms a giant network-shaped…
The need for organisms to regulate their volume and osmolarity when surrounded by freshwater is a basic physical challenge for many bacteria, protists and algae. Taking inspiration from the contractile vacuole complex found in many…
Biological transport networks are highly optimized structures that ensure power-efficient distribution of fluids across various domains, including animal vasculature and plant venation. Theoretically, these networks can be described as…
Mobility is a key factor in urban life and transport network plays a vital role in mobility. Worse transport network having less mobility is one of the key reasons to decline the living standard in any unplanned mega city. Transport…
Network-forming organisms, like fungi and slime molds, dynamically reorganize their networks during foraging. The resulting re-routing of resource flows within the organism's network can significantly impact local ecosystems. In current…
In this work we study and expand a model describing the dynamics of a unicellular slime mold, Physarum Polycephalum (PP), which was proposed to simulate the ability of PP to find the shortest path connecting two food sources in a maze. The…
Active materials form a class of far-from-equilibrium systems that are driven internally and exhibit self-organization which can be harnessed to perform mechanical work. Inspired by experiments on synthetic active networks we examine limits…
Cytoskeletal networks, which are essentially motor-filament assemblies, play a major role in many developmental processes involving structural remodeling and shape changes. These are achieved by nonequilibrium self-organization processes…
Active semiflexible filaments are crucial in various biophysical processes, yet insights into their single-filament behavior have predominantly relied on theory and simulations, owing to the scarcity of controllable synthetic systems. Here,…
Recent advances in microscopy techniques has uncovered unique aspects of flagella-driven motility in bacteria. A remarkable example is the discovery of flagellar wrapping, a phenomenon whereby a bacterium wraps its flagellum (or flagellar…