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Cilia and flagella in biological systems often show large scale cooperative behaviors such as the synchronization of their beats in "metachronal waves". These are beautiful examples of emergent dynamics in biology, and are essential for…
Many species of phytoplankton migrate vertically near the surface of the ocean, either in search of light or nutrients. These motile organisms are affected by ocean waves at the surface. We derive a set of wave-averaged equations to…
Microorganisms, such as E.Coli, are known to display upstream behavior and respond rheotactically to shear flows. In particular, E.Coli suspensions have been shown to display strong sensitivity to spatial constrictions, leading to an…
Water hydrating phospholipid membranes determine their stability and function, as well as their interaction with other molecules. In this article we study, using all-atom molecular dynamics simulations, the rotational and translational…
Filamentous cyanobacteria, forming long strands of connected cells, are one of the earliest and most successful forms of life on Earth. They exhibit self-organised behaviour, forming large-scale patterns in structures like biomats and…
The aggregation dynamics of slime mold is studied using coupled equations of phase \phi and cell concentration n. Phase waves work as tactic signals for aggregation. Branching structures appear during the aggregation. A stationary branching…
Suspensions of motile microorganisms can spontaneously form large-scale fluid motion, known as bioconvection, characterized by dense downwelling plumes separated by broad upwelling regions. In this study, we investigate bioconvection in…
The present habilitation thesis in theoretical biological physics addresses two central dynamical processes in cells and organisms: (i) active motility and motility control and (ii) self-organized pattern formation. The unifying theme is…
The structural reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton is facilitated through the action of motor proteins that crosslink the actin filaments and transport them relative to each other. Here, we present a combined experimental-computational…
Inspired by biology's use of vesicles for targeted transport, many studies have propelled liposomes with active matter, creating synthetic systems that can be viewed as microscale biohybrid robots. Nevertheless, the underlying motility…
A combination of cellular contractility and active phase separation in cell-matrix composites is thought to be an enabler of spatiotemporal patterning in multicellular tissues across scales, from somitogenesis to cartilage condensation. To…
A protein undergoes conformational dynamics with multiple time scales, which results in fluctuating enzyme activities. Recent studies in single molecule enzymology have observe this "age-old" dynamic disorder phenomenon directly. However,…
Acellular slime mould Physarum polycephalum is a monstrously large single cell visible by an unaided eye. It shows sophisticated behavioural traits in foraging for nutrients and developing an optimal transport network of protoplasmic tubes…
The effect of coordination on transport is investigated theoretically using random networks of springs as model systems. An effective medium approximation is made to compute the density of states of the vibrational modes, their energy…
Single flagellated bacteria are ubiquitous in nature. They exhibit various swimming modes using their flagella to explore complex surroundings such as soil and porous polymer networks. Some single-flagellated bacteria swim with two distinct…
Connecting the large-scale emergent behaviors of active materials to the microscopic properties of their constituents is a challenge due to a lack of data on the multiscale dynamics and structure of such systems. We approach this problem by…
Many natural and industrial processes rely on constrained transport, such as proteins moving through cells, particles confined in nanocomposite materials or gels, individuals in highly dense collec- tives and vehicular traffic conditions.…
Microswimmers in suspension exhibit collective swimming behaviour, forming various self-organised structures including ordered, aggregated, and turbulent-like structures. When mixed with passive particles phase-separation is known to occur,…
Small organisms (e.g., bacteria) and artificial microswimmers move due to a combination of active swimming and passive Brownian motion. Considering a simplified linear three-sphere swimmer, we study how the swimmer size regulates the…
We investigate theoretically the collective dynamics of a suspension of low Reynolds number swimmers that are confined to two dimensions by a thin fluid film. Our model swimmer is characterized by internal degrees of freedom which locally…