Related papers: Modeling collagen fibril degradation as a function…
We investigate how the microstructure of a colloidal polycrystal influences its linear viscoelasticity. We use thermosensitive copolymer micelles that arrange in water in a cubic crystalline lattice, yielding a colloidal polycrystal. The…
Battery degradation is governed by complex and randomized cyclic conditions, yet existing modeling and prediction frameworks usually rely on rigid, unchanging protocols that fail to capture real-world dynamics. The stochastic electrical…
Living tissues show an extraordinary adaptiveness to strain, which is crucial for their proper biological functioning. The physical origin of this mechanical behaviour has been widely investigated using reconstituted networks of collagen…
Biological membranes are elastic media in which the presence of a transmembrane protein leads to local bilayer deformation. The energetics of deformation allow two membrane proteins in close proximity to influence each other's equilibrium…
Disordered solids often change their elastic response as they slowly age. Using experiments and simulations, we study how aging disordered planar networks under an applied stress affects their nonlinear elastic response. We are able to…
The skin forms an efficient barrier against the environment, and rapid cutaneous wound healing after injury is therefore essential. Healing of the uppermost layer of the skin, the epidermis, involves collective migration of keratinocytes,…
The extracellular matrix (ECM) is a highly complex structure through which biochemical and mechanical signals are transmitted. In processes of cell migration, the ECM also acts as a scaffold, providing structural support to cells as well as…
Despite the advantages of using biodegradable metals in implant design, their uncontrolled degradation and release remain a challenge in practical applications. A validated computational model of the degradation process can facilitate the…
Collagen is the most abundant extracellular-matrix protein in mammals and the main structural and load-bearing element of connective tissues. Collagen networks show remarkable strain-stiffening properties which tune the mechanical functions…
Material failure is ubiquitous, with implications from geology to everyday life and material science. It often involves sudden, unpredictable events, with little or no macroscopically detectable precursors. A deeper understanding of the…
Healthy cartilage is a remarkable tissue, able to withstand tens of millions of loading cycles with minimal damage. While much is known about the structural origins of its compressive mechanics, how composition determines its mechanical…
We show that the aging of the mechanical relaxation of a gelatin gel exhibits the same scaling phenomenology as polymer and colloidal glasses. Besides, gelatin is known to exhibit logarithmic structural aging (stiffening). We find that…
Biopolymer networks are common in biological systems from the cytoskeleton of individual cells to collagen in the extracellular matrix. The mechanics of these systems under applied strain can be explained in some cases by a phase transition…
Keratoconus is a pathology of the cornea associated with a tissue thinning and a weakening of its mechanical properties. However, it remains elusive which aspect is the leading cause of the disease. To investigate this question, we combined…
Bone serves as a remarkable example of nature's architectured material with its unique blend of strength and toughness, all at a lightweight design. Given the hierarchical nature of these materials, it is essential to understand the…
The changes in stromal collagen play a crucial role during the pathogenesis and progression of pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasm (PanIN) to pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) while misdiagnosis of PanIN is common because of the…
Motor-driven cytoskeletal remodeling in cellular systems can often be accompanied by a diffusive-like effect at local scales, but distinguishing the contributions of the ordering process, such as active contraction of a network, from this…
Using analytical calculations and computer simulations we consider both the lateral diffusion of a membrane protein and the fluctuation spectrum of the membrane in which the protein is embedded. The membrane protein interacts with the…
The molecular machinery of life is largely created via self-organisation of individual molecules into functional assemblies. Minimal coarse-grained models, where a whole macromolecule is represented by a small number of particles, can be of…
We discuss the problem of proteasomal degradation of proteins. Though proteasomes are important for all aspects of the cellular metabolism, some details of the physical mechanism of the process remain unknown. We introduce a stochastic…