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Ever since the raft model for biomembranes has been proposed, the traditional view of biomembranes based on the fluid-mosaic model has been altered. In the raft model, dynamical heterogeneities in multi-component lipid bilayers play an…
Biological membranes are known to form various structural motifs, from lipid bilayers to tubular filaments and networks facilitating e.g. adhesion and cell-cell communication. To understand the biophysical processes underpinning lipid-lipid…
A microfluidic device is constructed from PDMS with a single channel having a short section that is a thin flexible membrane, in order to investigate the complex fluid-structure interaction that arises between a flowing fluid and a…
We study the deformation of a liquid interface with arbitrary principal curvatures by a flat circular sheet. Working first at small slopes, we determine the shape of the sheet analytically in the membrane limit, where the sheet is…
Changes of external parameters in proximity of critical point can increase thermal fluctuations of tubular lipid membrane (TLM) and result in variation of the membrane shape. The phase transitions in the system are shown to be controlled by…
The shape transformations of fluid membranes induced by curved protein rods are studied using meshless membrane simulations. The rod assembly at low rod density induces a flat membrane tube and oblate vesicle. It is found that the…
Vesicles are important surrogate structures made up of multiple phospholipids and cholesterol distributed in the form of a lipid bilayer. Tubular vesicles can undergo pearling i.e., formation of beads on the liquid thread akin to the…
A minimalist simulation model for lipid bilayers is presented. Each lipid is represented by a flexible chain of beads in implicit solvent. The hydrophobic effect is mimicked through an intermolecular pair potential localized at the…
How internal forces are transduced into motion through soft, fluid membranes remains a fundamental question in the study of active systems. To investigate this coupling, we develop a minimal system consisting of a single ferromagnetic…
Microgels are soft colloidal particles constituted by cross-linked polymer networks with a high potential for applications. In particular, after adsorption at a fluid interface, interfacial tension provides two-dimensional (2D) confinement…
Diffusion in cell membranes is not just simple two-dimensional Brownian motion, but typically depends on the timescale of the observation. The physical origins of this anomalous sub-diffusion are unresolved, and model systems capable of…
Interactions mediated by the cell membrane between inclusions, such as membrane proteins or antimicrobial peptides, play important roles in their biological activity. They also constitute a fascinating challenge for physicists, since they…
Lipid membranes form the barrier between the inside and outside of cells and many of their subcompartments. As such, they bind to a wide variety of nano- and micrometer sized objects and, in the presence of strong adhesive forces, strongly…
A cell membrane can be simply regarded as composite material consisting of lipid bilayer, membrane cytoskeleton beneath lipid bilayer, and proteins embedded in lipid bilayer and linked with membrane cytoskeleton if one only concerns its…
Lipid bilayer membranes are the fundamental biological barriers that permit life. The bilayer dynamics largely participates in orchestrating cellular workings and is characterized by substantial stability together with extreme plasticity…
The breakup of water droplets when exposed to high-speed gas flows is investigated using both high-magnification shadowgraphy experiments as well as fully three-dimensional numerical simulations, which account for viscous as well as…
Statistical ensembles of flexible two-dimensional fluid membranes arise naturally in the description of many physical systems. Typically one encounters such systems in a regime of low tension but high stiffness against bending, which is…
We present a theoretical model and experimental demonstration of thin liquid film deformations due to a dielectric force distribution established by surface electrodes. We model the spatial electric field produced by a pair of parallel…
The adhesion of a lipid membrane vesicle to a fixed substrate is examined from a geometrical point of view. This vesicle is described by the Helfrich hamiltonian quadratic in mean curvature; it interacts by contact with the substrate, with…
We study the interaction of two parallel rigid cylinders on the surface of a thin elastic film supported on a pool of liquid. The excess energy of the surface due to the curvature of the stretched film induces attraction of the cylinders…