Related papers: Effect of Poisson ratio on cellular structure form…
Compliant environments can mediate interactions between mechanically active cells like fibroblasts. Starting with a phenomenological model for the behaviour of single cells, we use extensive Monte Carlo simulations to predict non-trivial…
Biological cells in soft materials can be modeled as anisotropic force contraction dipoles. The corresponding elastic interaction potentials are long-ranged ($\sim 1/r^3$ with distance $r$) and depend sensitively on elastic constants,…
The behaviour and fate of tissue cells is controlled by the rigidity and geometry of their adhesive environment, possibly through forces localized to sites of adhesion. We introduce a mechanical model that predicts cellular force…
Cell shape changes are vital for many physiological processes such as cell proliferation, cell migration and morphogenesis. They emerge from an orchestrated interplay of active cellular force generation and passive cellular force response -…
We design two-dimensional (2D) mechanical metamaterials that may be deformed substantially at little or no energy cost. Examples of such deformable structures are assemblies of rigid isosceles triangles hinged in their corners on the…
The ability to control Poisson's ratio of functional materials has been one of the main objectives of researchers attempting to develop structures efficient from the perspective of protective, biomedical and soundproofing devices. This task…
We consider the link between fragility and elasticity that follows from analysis of the data for a set of soft-colloid materials consisting of deformable spheres reported by Mattsson et. al., in Nature vol 462, 83 (2009). Fragility index…
Most cellular solids are random materials, while practically all theoretical results are for periodic models. To be able to generate theoretical results for random models, the finite element method (FEM) was used to study the elastic…
Anchorage-dependent cells collect information on the mechanical properties of the environment through their contractile machineries and use this information to position and orient themselves. Since the probing process is anisotropic,…
Finite Element simulations of rubbers and biological soft tissue usually assume that the material being deformed is slightly compressible. It is shown here that in shearing deformations the corresponding normal stress distribution can…
Architected 2D lattice materials are appealing for shape-shifting applications due to the tunable sign of Poisson's ratio. It is commonly believed that the positive and negative Poisson's ratios lead to anticlastic and synclastic curvatures…
A simple algorithm is proposed for studies of structural and elastic properties in the presence of structural disorder at zero temperature. The algorithm is used to determine the properties of the polydisperse soft disc system. It is shown…
We study interactions between biological cells that apply anisotropic active mechanical forces on an elastic substrate. We model the cells as thin discs that along their perimeters apply radial, but angle-dependent forces on the substrate.…
A hallmark of biological tissues, viewed as complex cellular materials, is the active generation of mechanical stresses by cellular processes, such as cell divisions. Each cellular event generates a force dipole that deforms the surrounding…
Connecting cell behavior to tissue shape and mechanics is a key challenge in the physics of morphogenesis. Cytoskeletal turnover precludes a fixed reference state, and tensions are actively generated independently of strain; so conventional…
We report detailed theoretical investigations of the micro-mechanics and bulk elastic properties of composites consisting of randomly distributed stiff fibers embedded in an elastic matrix in two and three dimensions. Recent experiments…
We investigate morphologies of proliferating cellular tissues using a newly developed numerical simulation model for mechanical cell division and migration in 2D. The model is applied to a bimodal mixture consisting of stiff cells with a…
Macroscopic properties and shapes of biological tissues depend on the remodelling of cell-cell junctions at the microscopic scale. We propose a theoretical framework that couples a vertex model of solid confluent tissues with the dynamics…
Cell migration plays a fundamental role in numerous physiological processes, including embryonic development, wound healing, and cancer metastasis. While cell-cell adhesion is known to regulate motion by shaping cell morphology and…
The organization of live cells to tissues is associated with the mechanical interaction between cells, which is mediated through their elastic environment. We model cells as spherical active force dipoles surrounded by an infinite elastic…