Related papers: Mechanical activity enables patterning and discrim…
Molecular recognition, which is essential in processing information in biological systems, takes place in a crowded noisy biochemical environment and requires the recognition of a specific target within a background of various similar…
Cell crawling requires the generation of intracellular forces by the cytoskeleton and their transmission to an extracellular substrate through specific adhesion molecules. Crawling cells show many features of excitable systems, such as…
Active nematics, formed from a liquid crystalline suspension of active force dipoles, are a paradigmatic active matter system whose study provides insights into how chemical driving produces the cellular mechanical forces essential for…
Microbiological systems evolve to fulfill their tasks with maximal efficiency. The immune system is a remarkable example, where self-non self distinction is accomplished by means of molecular interaction between self proteins and antigens,…
Active forces occurring within cells can drive crucial biological processes that involve spontaneous organization and shape change, such as cell division. Motivated by recent in vitro experiments of nematic droplets of cytoskeletal…
The task of learning patterns is typically associated with systems that update parameters on fixed architectures, such as neural networks, where learning proceeds through continuous optimization. Here, we demonstrate that pattern learning…
Cell-cell communication is often achieved by secreted signaling molecules that bind membrane-bound receptors. A common class of such receptors are G-protein coupled receptors, where extracellular binding induces changes on the membrane…
Migratory and tissue resident cells exhibit highly branched morphologies to perform their function and to adapt to the microenvironment. Immune cells, for example, display transient branched shapes while exploring the surrounding tissues.…
What can cells gain by using disordered, rather than folded, proteins in the architecture of their skeleton? Disordered proteins take multiple co-existing conformations, and often contain segments which act as random-walk-shaped polymers.…
Synaptic plasticity is the capacity of a preexisting connection between two neurons to change in strength as a function of neural activity. Because synaptic plasticity is the major candidate mechanism for learning and memory, the…
We report the simultaneous characterization of time- and force-dependent mechanical properties of adherent cells in the physiologically relevant regime of large forces. We used magnetic tweezers to apply forces to magnetic beads bound to…
The bending of cilia and flagella is driven by forces generated by dynein motor proteins. These forces slide adjacent microtubule doublets within the axoneme, the motile cytoskeletal structure. To create regular, oscilla- tory beating…
We present a novel model that describes the within-host evolutionary dynamics of parasites undergoing antigenic variation. The approach uses a multi-type branching process with two types of entities defined according to their relationship…
The adaptive immune system provides a diverse set of molecules that can mount specific responses against a multitude of pathogens. Memory is a key feature of adaptive immunity, which allows organisms to respond more readily upon…
Active processes drive and guide biological dynamics across scales -- from subcellular cytoskeletal remodelling, through tissue development in embryogenesis, to population-level bacterial colonies expansion. In each of these, biological…
B cells signaling in response to antigen is proportional to antigen affinity, a process known as affinity discrimination. Recent research suggests that B cells can acquire antigen in membrane-bound form on the surface of antigen-presenting…
Cell cultures exhibit rich and complex behaviors driven by dynamic metabolic interactions among cells. In this work, we present a model that captures these interactions through a framework inspired by statistical mechanics. Using Monte…
Fluid-structure interactions between active and passive components are important for many biological systems to function. A particular example is chromatin in the cell nucleus, where ATP-powered processes drive coherent motions of the…
Organisms have evolved immune systems that can counter pathogenic threats. The adaptive immune system in vertebrates consists of a diverse repertoire of immune receptors that can dynamically reorganize to specifically target the…
Living tissue is able to withstand large stresses in everyday life, yet it also actively adapts to dynamic loads. This remarkable mechanical behaviour emerges from the interplay between living cells and their non-living extracellular…