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At the heart of the structured architecture and complex dynamics of biological systems are specific and timely interactions operated by biomolecules. In many instances, biomolecular agents are spatially confined to flexible lipid membranes…
The coat proteins of many viruses spontaneously form icosahedral capsids around nucleic acids or other polymers. Elucidating the role of the packaged polymer in capsid formation could promote biomedical efforts to block viral replication…
Nematic elastomers are programmable soft materials that display large, reversible and predictable deformation under an external stimulus such as a change in temperature or light. While much of the work in the field has focused on actuation…
Confinement can significantly alter fluid properties, offering potential for specific technological applications. However, achieving precise control over the structural complexity of confined fluids and soft matter remains challenging, as…
I develop a kinetic mechanism to explain chain folding in polymer crystallization which is based on the competition between the formation of stems, which is due to frequent occupations of trans states along the chains in the supercooled…
Soft surfaces, spanning vastly different environmental and biomedical settings, are frequently colonised by surface-associated bacteria. Yet, how soft surfaces govern bacterial dynamics and their self-organisation into colonies remains…
Polymer gels are comprised of a three-dimensional, cross-linked network that can typically withstand the mechanical deformation associated with both swelling and de-swelling. Thus, gels can be designed with smart behaviors that require both…
Can active forces be exploited to drive the consistent collapse of an active polymer into a folded structure? In this paper we introduce and perform numerical simulations of a simple model of active colloidal folders, and show that a…
We investigate the stretching response of a thick polymer model by means of extensive stochastic simulations. The computational results are synthesized in an analytic expression that characterizes how the force versus elongation curve…
We employ a first principles, force-level approach to self-consistently construct the anharmonic tube confinement field for entangled fluids of rigid needles and for primitive-path (PP) level chains in two limiting situations where chain…
We develop a formal model of the emergence of self-constructing objects (e.g. heteropolymers with autocatalytic capability) in an open system, which don't contain such objects initially. The objects are constructed from subunits (e.g.…
Large-scale simulations of thermal welding of polymers are performed to investigate the rise of mechanical strength at the polymer-polymer interface with the welding time. The welding process is in the core of integrating polymeric elements…
The assembly of proteins in membranes plays a key role in many crucial cellular pathways. Despite their importance, characterizing transmembrane assembly remains challenging for experiments and simulations. Equilibrium molecular dynamics…
A microscopic model of a surface polymer network - membrane system is introduced, with contact polymer surface interactions that can be either repulsive or attractive and sliplinks of functionality four randomly distributed over the…
While recent efforts have shown how local structure plays an essential role in the dynamic heterogeneity of homogeneous glass-forming materials, systems containing interfaces such as thin films or composite materials remain poorly…
In this work, we compare the structural and dynamic behavior of active filaments in two dimensions using tangential and push-pull models, including a variant with passive end monomers. These models serve as valuable frameworks for…
The compliant structure of soft robotic systems enables a variety of novel capabilities in comparison to traditional rigid-bodied robots. A subclass of soft fluid-driven actuators known as fiber reinforced elastomeric enclosures (FREEs) is…
We carry out numerical simulations of vesicle formation based on the density functional theory for block copolymer solutions. It is shown by solving the time evolution equations for concentrations that a polymer vesicle is spontaneously…
The fabrication of versatile building blocks that are reliably self-assemble into desired ordered and disordered phases is amongst the hottest topics in contemporary material science. To this end, microscopic units of varying complexity,…
Live cells have ambiguous mechanical properties. They were often described as either elastic solids or viscoelastic fluids and have recently been classified as soft glassy materials characterized by weak power-law rheology. Nonlinear…