Related papers: Mechanical prions: Self-assembling microstructures
The self-organization of proteins into enriched compartments and the formation of complex patterns are crucial processes for life on the cellular level. Liquid-liquid phase separation is one mechanism for forming such enriched compartments.…
Collective control of mobile microrobotic swarms is indispensable for their potential high-impact applications in targeted drug delivery, medical diagnostics, parallel micromanipulation, and environmental sensing and remediation. Lack of…
RNA folding is a kinetic process governed by the competition of a large number of structures stabilized by the transient formation of base pairs that may induce complex folding pathways and the formation of misfolded structures. Despite of…
It is shown that a small subset of modes which are likely to be involved in protein functional motions of large amplitude can be determined by retaining the most robust normal modes obtained using different protein models. This result…
We model the evolution of eukaryotic protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks. In our model, PPI networks evolve by two known biological mechanisms: (1) Gene duplication, which is followed by rapid diversification of duplicate…
Biologists and physicists have a rich tradition of modeling living systems with simple models composed of a few interacting components. Despite the remarkable success of this approach, it remains unclear how to use such finely tuned models…
Physical reasoning is a core aspect of intelligence in animals and humans. A central question is what model should be used as a basis for reasoning. Existing work considered models ranging from intuitive physics and physical simulators to…
Prions are proteinaceous infectious particles that cause neurodegenerative diseases in humans and animals. The complex nature of prions, with respect to their conformations and aggregations, has been an important area of research for quite…
Over the years, advances in experimental and computational methods have helped us to understand the role of thermodynamic, kinetic and active (chaperone-aided) effects in coordinating the folding steps required to achieving a knotted native…
Proteins are an important class of biomolecules that serve as essential building blocks of the cells. Their three-dimensional structures are responsible for their functions. In this thesis we have investigated the protein structures using a…
The building of minimal self-reproducing systems with a physical embodiment (generically called protocells) is a great challenge, with implications for both theory and applied sciences. Although the classical view of a living protocell…
The implementation of natural and artificial proteins with designer properties and functionalities offers unparalleled opportunity for functional nanoarchitectures formed through self-assembly. However, to exploit the opportunities offered…
Understanding how living organisms spontaneously develop complex functional structures inspires innovative approaches in engineering design. Here, we introduce a decentralized generative model based on morphogenesis to autonomously grow…
Colloids play an important role in fundamental science as well as in nature and technology. They have had a strong impact on the fundamental understanding of statistical physics. For example, colloids have helped to obtain a better…
This article reviews the mechanical bidomain model, a mathematical description how the extracellular matrix and intracellular cytoskeleton are coupled by integrin proteins. The fundamental hypothesis is that differences between…
Structural causal models describe how the components of a robotic system interact. They provide both structural and functional information about the relationships that are present in the system. The structural information outlines the…
The design of intelligent materials often draws parallels with the complex adaptive behaviors of biological organisms, where robust functionality stems from sophisticated hierarchical organization and emergent long-distance coordination…
Neither of the two prevalent theories, namely thermodynamic stability and kinetic stability, provides a comprehensive understanding of protein folding. The thermodynamic theory is misleading because it assumes that free energy is the…
The functional demands of robotic systems often require completing various tasks or behaviors under the effect of disturbances or uncertain environments. Of increasing interest is the autonomy for dynamic robots, such as multirotors, motor…
Biological cells sense and respond to mechanical forces, but how such a mechanosensing proccess takes place in a nonlinear inhomogeneous fibrous matrix remains unknown. We show that cells in a fibrous matrix induce deformation fields that…