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Cells and tissues exert forces and can actively change shape. This strikingly autonomous behavior is powered by the cytoskeleton, which includes an active gel of actin filaments, crosslinks, and myosin molecular motors. Although individual…
Cell migration is a fundamental process for life and is highly dependent on the dynamical and mechanical properties of the cytoskeleton. Intensive physical and biochemical crosstalk between actin, microtubules, and intermediate filaments…
Structural hierarchy, in which materials possess distinct features on multiple length scales, is ubiquitous in nature; diverse biological materials, such as bone, cellulose, and muscle, have as many as ten hierarchical levels. Structural…
Thermosensitive microgels are widely studied hybrid systems combining properties of polymers and colloidal particles in a unique way. Due to their complex morphology their interactions and packing, and consequentially the viscoelastcity of…
Field induced assembly of reconfigurable structures with complex hierarchical configurations has recently become an area of intense research with the promise for exciting applications in programmable self-assembly and nano/microstructure…
Arterial tissue failures lead to a number of clinical conditions that develop rapidly and unpredictably in vivo. Structural components and their interfacial mechanical strength of arterial tissue play a critical role in the process of…
In this paper, we discuss microscopic models for chiral active particles, i.e., rotating active units that exhibit circular or spinning motion. While non-chiral active particles are typically governed by self-propulsion and conservative…
Filamentous bio-materials such as fibrin or collagen networks exhibit an enormous stiffening of their elastic moduli upon large deformations. This pronounced nonlinear behavior stems from a significant separation between the stiffnesses…
Living cells are soft bodies of a characteristic form, but endowed with a capacity for a steady turnover of their structures. Both of these material properties, i.e. recovery of the shape after an external stress has been imposed and…
Axons of retinal ganglion cells establish orderly projections to the superior colliculus of the midbrain. Axons of neighboring cells terminate proximally in the superior colliculus thus forming a topographically precise representation of…
The organization of live cells into tissues and their subsequent biological function involves inter-cell mechanical interactions, which are mediated by their elastic environment. To model this interaction, we consider cells as spherical…
Collective cell migration in epithelia relies on cell intercalation: a local remodelling of the cellular network that allows neighbouring cells to swap their positions. Unlike foams and passive cellular fluid, in epithelial intercalation…
The supramolecular assembly of lipids into bilayer membranes is essential for cellular structure and function. However, the impact of lipid structural variations such as acyl chain length, degree of unsaturation, and headgroup type on…
Directed motion up a concentration gradient is crucial for the survival and maintenance of numerous biological systems, such as sperms moving towards an egg during fertilization or ciliates moving towards a food source. In these systems,…
The interplay of membrane proteins is vital for many biological processes, such as cellular transport, cell division, and signal transduction between nerve cells. Theoretical considerations have led to the idea that the membrane itself…
Geometric and structural constraints greatly restrict the selection of folds adapted by protein backbones, and yet, folded proteins show an astounding diversity in functionality. For structure to have any bearing on function, it is thus…
Structure formation and constant reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton are key requirements for the function of living cells. Here we show that a minimal reconstituted system consisting of actin filaments, crosslinking molecules and…
The dynamic behavior of scalp potentials (EEG) is apparently due to some combination of global and local processes with important top-down and bottom-up interactions across spatial scales. In treating global mechanisms, we stress the…
Active matter systems - such as a collection of active colloidal particles - operate far from equilibrium with complex inter-particle interactions that govern their collective dynamics. Predicting the collective dynamics of such systems may…
I consider the microscopic mechanisms by which a particular left-right (L/R) asymmetry is generated at the organism level from the microscopic handedness of cytoskeletal molecules. In light of a fundamental symmetry principle, the typical…