Related papers: Collective dynamics and elasto-chemical cluster wa…
We analyze data from confocal microscopy experiments of a colloidal suspension to validate predictions of rapid sporadic events responsible for structural relaxation in a glassy sample. The trajectories of several thousand colloidal…
Cells sense environmental signals and transmit information intracellularly through changes in the abundance of molecular components. Such molecular abundances can be measured in single cells and exhibit significant heterogeneity in clonal…
Responsive particles, such as biomacromolecules or hydrogels, display a broad and polymodal distribution of conformations and have thus the ability to change their properties (e.g, size, shape, charge density, etc.) substantially in…
Colloidal fluids can exhibit complex phase behavior and determining phase diagrams via experiments or computer simulations can be laborious. We demonstrate that the dispersion relation $\omega(k)$, obtained from dynamical density functional…
Exchange of molecules allows cells to exchange information. How robust is the information to changes in cell parameters? We use a mapping between the stochastic dynamics of two cells sharing a stimulatory molecule, and parameters akin to an…
We present a detailed numerical study of multi-component colloidal gels interacting sterically and obtained by arrested phase separation. Under deformation, we found that the interplay between the different intertwined networks is key.…
Many fascinating phenomena such as large-scale collective flows, enhanced fluid mixing and pattern formation have been observed in so-called active fluids, which are composed of particles that can absorb energy and dissipate it into the…
Thermoresponsive microgels are soft colloids that find widespread use as model systems for soft matter physics. Their complex internal architecture, made of a disordered and heterogeneous polymer network, has been so far a major challenge…
The interplay between structure and dynamics in non-equilibrium steady-state is far from understood. We address this interplay by tracking Brownian Dynamics trajectories of particles in a binary colloid of opposite charges in an external…
Biological tissues exhibit diverse mechanical and rheological behaviors during morphogenesis. While much is known about tissue phase transitions controlled by structural order and cell mechanics, key questions regarding how tissue-scale…
The rheological behavior of colloidal dispersions is of paramount importance in a wide range of applications, including construction materials, energy storage systems and food industry products. These dispersions consistently exhibit…
Chemical signaling is one of the ubiquitous mechanisms by which inter-cellular communication takes place at the microscopic level, particularly via chemotaxis. Such multi-cellular systems are popularly studied using continuum, mean-field…
Adhesive contact between a thin elastic sheet and a substrate in a liquid environment arises in a range of biological, physical and technological applications. By considering the dynamics of this process that naturally couples fluid flow,…
Soft pair potentials predict a reentrant liquid phase for high concentrations, a behavior not observed experimentally. Here, very soft microgels confined at an oil-water interface are used as a model system of particles interacting via a…
When a rigid object approaches a soft material in a viscous fluid, hydrodynamic stresses arise in the lubricated contact region and deform the soft material. The elastic deformation modifies in turn the flow, hence generating a…
Mechanical interactions between biological cells may be mediated by secreted products, making them dependent on the local particle density. Here, we explore the generic physics of density-dependent attractive interactions. We show using…
A quantitative understanding of how cells interact with their extracellular matrix via molecular bonds is fundamental for many important processes in cell biology and engineering. In these interactions, the deformability of cells and matrix…
In this work, we describe the first modular, and programmable platform capable of transmitting a text message using chemical signalling -- a method also known as molecular communication. This form of communication is attractive for…
The dynamics of particles interacting by key-lock binding of attached biomolecules are studied theoretically. Experimental realizations of such systems include colloids grafted with complementary single-stranded DNA (ssDNA), and particles…
Many living and artificial systems show a similar emergent behavior and collective motions on different scales, starting from swarms of bacteria to synthetic active particles, herds of mammals and crowds of people. What all these systems…