Related papers: Mechanical prions: Self-assembling microstructures
Geometric and structural constraints greatly restrict the selection of folds adapted by protein backbones, and yet, folded proteins show an astounding diversity in functionality. For structure to have any bearing on function, it is thus…
Biological systems, including human beings, have the innate ability to perform complex tasks in versatile and agile manner. Researchers in sensorimotor control have tried to understand and formally define this innate property. The idea,…
Natural structural materials, such as bone and wood, can autonomously adapt their mechanical properties in response to loading to prevent failure. They smartly control the addition of material in locations of high stress by utilizing…
Throughout our history, we, humans, have sought to better control and understand our environment. To this end, we have extended our natural senses with a host of sensors-tools that enable us to detect both the very large, such as the…
The ability to computationally generate novel yet physically foldable protein structures could lead to new biological discoveries and new treatments targeting yet incurable diseases. Despite recent advances in protein structure prediction,…
We consider a model for the polymerization (fragmentation) process involved in infectious prion self-replication and study both its dynamics and non-zero steady state. We address several issues. Firstly, we give conditions leading to size…
Accurate physical modeling with 3D-printing techniques could lead to new approaches to study structure and dynamics of biological systems complementing computational methods. Computational biology has become an important part of research…
Microtubules and motor proteins are building blocks of self-organized subcellular biological structures such as the mitotic spindle and the centrosomal microtubule array. These same ingredients can form new "bioactive" liquid-crystalline…
Self-shaping of curved structures, especially those involving flexible thin layers, has attracted increasing attention because of their broad potential applications in e.g. nanoelectromechanical/micro-electromechanical systems (NEMS/MEMS),…
We address the question, related with the origin of the genetic code, of why are there three bases per codon in the translation to protein process. As a followup to our previous work, we approach this problem by considering the…
Traditional robots have rigid links and structures that limit their ability to interact with the dynamics of their immediate environment. For example, conventional robot manipulators with rigid links can only manipulate objects using…
Folding and aggregation of proteins, the interaction between proteins and membranes, as well as the adsorption of organic soft matter to inorganic solid substrates belong to the most interesting challenges in understanding structure and…
Statistical prediction models are often trained on data from different probability distributions than their eventual use cases. One approach to proactively prepare for these shifts harnesses the intuition that causal mechanisms should…
The process of self-morphing in curved surfaces found in nature, such as with the growth of flowers and leaves, has generated interest in the study of self-morphing bilayers, which has been used in many soft robots or switchers. However,…
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenous small non-coding RNAs that play an important role in post-transcriptional gene regulation. However, the experimental determination of miRNA sequence and structure is both expensive and time-consuming.…
Proteins are the common constituents of all living cells. They are molecular machines that interact with each other as well as with other cell products and carry out a dizzying array of functions with distinction. These interactions follow…
Motility is a basic feature of living microorganisms, and how it works is often determined by environmental cues. Recent efforts have focused on develop- ing artificial systems that can mimic microorganisms, and in particular their…
In this work, we discovered a fundamental connection between selection for protein stability and emergence of preferred structures of proteins. Using standard exact 3-dimensional lattice model we evolve sequences starting from random ones…
Reprogrammable mechanical metamaterials, composed of a lattice of discretely adaptive elements, are emerging as a promising platform for mechanical intelligence. To operate in unknown environments, such structures must go beyond passive…
The Gene or DNA sequence in every cell does not control genetic properties on its own; Rather, this is done through translation of DNA into protein and subsequent formation of a certain 3D structure. The biological function of a protein is…