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Ciliated microswimmers and flagellated bacteria alter their swimming trajectories to follow the direction of an applied electric field exhibiting electrotaxis. Both for matters of application and physical modelling, it is instructive to…

Self-propelling bacteria are a dream of nano-technology. These unicellular organisms are not just capable of living and reproducing, but they can swim very efficiently, sense the environment and look for food, all packaged in a body…

Natural active systems routinely reshape and reorganize their environments through sustained local interactions. Examples of decentralized collective construction are common in nature, e.g., many insects achieve large-scale constructions…

The question of how "smart" active agents, like insects, microorganisms, or future colloidal robots need to steer to optimally reach or discover a target, such as an odor source, food, or a cancer cell in a complex environment has recently…

The field of synthetic active matter has, thus far, been led by efforts to create point-like, isolated (yet interacting) self-propelled objects (\emph{e.g.} colloids, droplets, microrobots) and understanding their collective dynamics. The…

Background: Living cells of many types need to move in response to external stimuli in order to accomplish their functional tasks; these tasks range from wound healing to immune response to fertilization. While the directional motion is…

Many microorganisms swim by performing larger non-reciprocal shape deformations that are initiated locally by molecular motors. However, it remains unclear how decentralized shape control determines the movement of the entire organism.…

Biological systems often involve the self-assembly of basic components into complex and function- ing structures. Artificial systems that mimic such processes can provide a well-controlled setting to explore the principles involved and also…

Micro-robots for, e.g., biomedical applications, need to be equipped with motility strategies that enable them to navigate through complex environments. Inspired by biological microorganisms we recreate motility patterns such as…

Self-propelled nanoparticles moving through liquids offer the possibility of creating advanced applications where such nanoswimmers can operate as artificial molecular-sized motors. Achieving control over the motion of nanoswimmers is a…

To explore and react to their environment, living micro-swimmers have developed sophisticated strategies for locomotion - in particular, motility with multiple gaits. To understand the physical principles associated with such a behavioural…

The design of artificial microswimmers is often inspired by the strategies of natural microorganisms. Many of these creatures exploit the fact that elasticity breaks the time-reversal symmetry of motion at low Reynolds numbers, but this…

Bacteria commonly live in structured communities that affect human health and influence ecological systems. Heterogeneous populations, such as motile and non-motile populations, often coexist in bacteria communities. Motile subpopulations…

Locomotion and transport of microorganisms in fluids is an essential aspect of life. Search for food, orientation toward light, spreading of off-spring, and the formation of colonies are only possible due to locomotion. Swimming at the…

Artificial microswimmers are a new technology with promising microfluidics and biomedical applications, such as directed cargo transport, microscale assembly, and targeted drug delivery. A fundamental barrier to realising this potential is…

Micromotors pushed by biological entities, like motile bacteria, constitute a fascinating way to convert chemical energy into mechanical work at the micrometer scale. Here we show, by using numerical simulations, that a properly designed…

Biological microswimmers often encounter deformable boundaries in physiological conditions; for instance, the viscoelastic walls of reproductive tract during migration of spermatozoa, or host tissue during early bacterial biofilm formation.…

Swimmers and self-propelled particles are physical models for the collective behaviour and motility of a wide variety of living systems, such as bacteria colonies, bird flocks and fish schools. Such artificial active materials are amenable…

The research field of Artificial Life studies how life-like phenomena such as autopoiesis, agency, or self-regulation can self-organize in computer simulations. In cellular automata (CA), a key open-question has been whether it it is…

Many fascinating properties of biological active matter crucially depend on the capacity of constituting entities to perform directed motion, e.g., molecular motors transporting vesicles inside cells or bacteria searching for food. While…