Related papers: Controlling crystallization and its absence: Prote…

Atomic packing is an important metric for characterizing protein structures, as it significantly influences various features including the stability, the rate of evolution and the functional roles of proteins. Packing in protein structures…

Macroscopic properties of suspensions, such as those composed of globular particles (e.g., colloidal or macromolecular), can be tuned by controlling the equilibrium aggregation of the particles. We examine how aggregation -- and, hence,…

The structure of nanoclusters is complex to describe due to their noncrystallinity, even though bonding and packing constraints limit the local atomic arrangements to only a few types. A computational scheme is presented to extract…

Studies of nucleation generally focus on the properties of the critical cluster, but the presence of defects within the crystal lattice means that the population of nuclei necessarily evolve through a distribution of pre-critical clusters…

Targeting specific technological applications requires the control of nanoparticle properties, especially the crystalline polymorph. Freezing a nanodroplet deposited on a solid substrate leads to the formation of crystalline structures. We…

We develop a multi-scale approach to simulate hydrated nanobio systems under realistic condi- tions (e.g., nanoparticles and protein solutions at physiological conditions over time-scales up to hours). We combine atomistic simulations of…

Recent studies in the collective behavior of active colloids have shown that a global polar order may emerge due to long-ranged chemo-repulsive interactions between them. Here, we report the role of pinning disorder in the flocking…

The self-assembly of particles into organized structures is a key feature of living organisms and a major engineering challenge. While it may proceed through the binding of perfectly matched, puzzle-pieces-like particles, many other…

Atomistic simulations have become a powerful tool in materials research due to the extremely fine spatial and temporal resolution provided by such techniques. In order to understand the fundamental principles which govern material behavior…

Biomolecular condensates govern essential cellular processes yet elude description by traditional equilibrium models. This roadmap, distilled from structured discussions at a workshop and reflecting the consensus of its participants,…

Identifying the conditions under which glass formation occurs is crucial for a fundamental understanding of the glass transition mechanism. Pure liquids devoid of any frustration avoid glass transition and undergo crystallization. In this…

Droplet formation has emerged as an essential concept for the spatiotemporal organisation of biomolecules in cells. However, classical descriptions of droplet dynamics based on passive liquid-liquid phase separation cannot capture the…

We introduce a simple physical picture to explain the process of molecular sorting, whereby specific proteins are concentrated and distilled into submicrometric lipid vesicles in eukaryotic cells. To this purpose, we formulate a model based…

In formation control, an ensemble of autonomous agents is required to stabilize at a given configuration in the plane, doing so while agents are allowed to observe only a subset of the ensemble. As such, formation control provides a rich…

While all the information required for the folding of a protein is contained in its amino acid sequence, one has not yet learned how to extract this information to predict the three--dimensional, biologically active, native conformation of…

We present a mathematical model for solvated crystallization of alpha -lactose monohydrate in semi-batch mode. The process dynamics are governed by conservation laws including population, molar and energy balance equations. We present and…

In spite of decades of research, much remains to be discovered about folding: the detailed structure of the initial (unfolded) state, vestigial folding instructions remaining only in the unfolded state, the interaction of the molecule with…

In recent years, experimental and theoretical investigations have shown that anisotropic colloids can self-organise into ordered porous monolayers, where the interplay of localised bonding sites, so called patches, with the particle's shape…

Complex crystal structures are composed of multiple local environments, and how this type of order emerges spontaneously during crystal growth has yet to be fully understood. We study crystal growth across various structures and along…

In supercooled liquids, vitrification generally suppresses crystallization. Yet some glasses can still crystallize despite the arrest of diffusive motion. This ill-understood process may limit the stability of glasses, but its microscopic…