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Proposals to determine biomolecular structures from diffraction experiments using femtosecond X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) pulses involve a conflict between the incident brightness required to achieve diffraction-limited atomic…
The red blood cell (RBC) membrane is composed of a lipid bilayer and a cytoskeleton interconnected by protein junction complexes, allowing for potential sliding between the lipid bilayer and the cytoskeleton. Despite this biological…
We develop a model for gels and entangled solutions of semiflexible biopolymers such as F-actin. Such networks play a crucial structural role in the cytoskeleton of cells. We show that the rheologic properties of these networks can result…
Tissue growth kinetics and interface dynamics depend on the properties of the tissue environment and cell-cell interactions. In cellular environments, substrate heterogeneity and geometry arise from a variety factors, such as the structure…
Intracellular phagosomes have a lipid bilayer encapsulated fluidic shell outside the particle, on the outer side of which, molecular motors are attached. An optically trapped spherical birefringent particle phagosome provides an ideal…
Titanium surface treated with titanium oxide nanotubes was used in many studies to quantify the effect of surface topography on cell fate. However, the predicted optimal diameter of nanotubes considerably differs among studies. We propose a…
Flexible mechanical metamaterials possess repeating structural motifs that imbue them with novel, exciting properties including programmability, anomalous elastic moduli and nonlinear and robust response. We address such structures via…
The rheological properties of brushes of different length on the surface of human epithelial cancerous cells are studied here by means of coarse grained numerical simulations, where the surface of the cell is subjected to an external…
Diffusion is a fundamental phenomenon that occurs ubiquitously in nature and remains the subject of continuous research interest. Understanding diffusion is a key to understanding leaving systems. In this Chapter, I discuss diffusion of…
A framework is presented for understanding the common character of proteins. Proteins are linear chain molecules. However, the simple model of a polymer viewed as spheres tethered together does not account for many of the observed…
Understanding and manipulating the interactions between foreign bodies and cell membranes during endo- and phagocytosis is of paramount importance, not only for the fate of living cells but also for numerous biomedical applications. This…
Cell membranes are studded with protrusions that were thoroughly analyzed with electron microscopy. However, the nanometer-scale three-dimensional motions generated by cell membranes to fit the topography of foreign surfaces and initiate…
Most conspicuous organisms are multicellular and most multicellular organisms develop somatic cells to perform specific, non-reproductive tasks. The ubiquity of this division of labor suggests that it is highly advantageous. In this paper,…
A theoretical model for stratified epithelium is presented. The viscoelastic properties of the tissue is assumed to be dependent on the spatial distribution of proliferative and differentiated cells. Based on this assumption, a hydrodynamic…
Dielectric elastomers are an emerging class of highly deformable electro-active materials employed for electromechanical transduction technology. For practical applications, the design of such transducers requires a model accounting for…
The plasma membrane of human red blood cells consists of a lipid bilayer attached to a regular network of underlying cytoskeletal polymers. We model this system at a dynamic coarse-grained level, treating the bilayer as an elastic sheet and…
The epitaxial growth of complex oxide thin films provide three avenues to generate unique properties: the ability to influence the 3-dimensional structure of the film, the presence of a surface, and the generation of an interface. In all…
Rigidity transitions in simple models of confluent cells have been a powerful organizing principle in understanding the dynamics and mechanics of dense biological tissue. In this work we explore the interplay between geometry and rigidity…
Cells exhibit qualitatively different behaviors on substrates with different rigidities. The fact that cells are more polarized on the stiffer substrate motivates us to construct a two-dimensional cell with the distribution of focal…
Diffuse gliomas are highly infiltrative tumors whose early diagnosis and follow-up usually rely on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). However, the limited sensitivity of this technique makes it impossible to directly assess the extent of the…