生物物理
While biologists have not yet reached a consensus on the definition of life, homochirality - the specific molecular handedness of biomolecules - is a phenomenon only produced by life. The unraveling of its origin requires interdisciplinary…
Studies suggests that patients with deep vein thrombosis and diabetes often have hy-per coagulable blood plasma leading to higher chances of forming thromboembolisms by the rupture of blood clots, which may lead to stroke and death. Despite…
Blood clots occur in the human body when they are required to prevent bleeding. In pathological states such as diabetes and sickle cell disease, blood clots can also form undesirably due to hypercoagulable plasma conditions. With the…
One of the most important topics in molecular biology is the genetic stability of DNA. One threat to this stability is proton transfer along the hydrogen bonds of DNA that could lead to tautomerisation, hence creating point mutations. We…
Cells have evolved efficient strategies to probe their surroundings and navigate through complex environments. From metastatic spread in the body to swimming cells in porous materials, escape through narrow constrictions - a key component…
A long standing puzzle in the rheology of living cells is the origin of the experimentally observed long time stress relaxation. The mechanics of the cell is largely dictated by the cytoskeleton, which is a biopolymer network consisting of…
We propose a simple mechanism for the self-replication of protocells. Our main hypothesis is that the amphiphilic molecules composing the membrane bilayer are synthesised inside the protocell through globally exothermic chemical reactions.…
Collagen fibrils are the main structural component of load-bearing tissues such as tendons, ligaments, skin, the cornea of the eye, and the heart. The D-band of collagen fibrils is an axial periodic density modulation that can be easily…
We adapt the theory of anisotropic rubber elasticity to model cross-linked double-twist liquid crystal cylinders such as exhibited in biological systems. In mechanical extension we recover strain-straightening, but with an exact expression…
The lysyl oxidase (LOX) enzyme that catalyses cross-link formation during the assembly of collagen fibrils in vivo is too large to diffuse within assembled fibrils, and so is incompatible with a fully equilibrium mechanism for fibril…
Nano-indentation based on, e.g., atomic force microscopy (AFM), can measure single cell elasticity with high spatial resolution and sensitivity, but relating the data to cell mechanical properties depends on modeling that requires knowledge…
The application of systems and control theory to membrane physiology is presented here. Modeling efforts have focused on describing those physiologically realistic mechanisms which govern the regulation of membrane permeability in nerve.…
The spatiotemporal organization of bacterial cells is crucial for the active segregation of replicating chromosomes. In several species, including Caulobacter crescentus, the ATPase ParA binds to DNA and forms a gradient along the long cell…
Enzymatic ligation is essential for the synthesis of long DNA. However, the number of ligated products exponentially decays as the DNA synthesis proceeds in a random manner. The controlling of ligation randomness is of importance to…
Simulations with an adaptive time-dependent bias, such as metadynamics, enable an efficient exploration of the conformational space of a system. However, the dynamic information of the system is altered by the bias. With infrequent…
Objective: To compare non-contact acoustic micro-tapping optical coherence elastography (AuT-OCE) with destructive mechanical tests to confirm corneal elastic anisotropy. Design: Ex vivo, laboratory study with non-contact AuT-OCE followed…
The essential features of far-field low-energy defibrillation are elucidated using a simple cellular automaton model of excitable media. The model's topological character allows for direct correspondence with both realistic models and…
Flow visualisations are essential to better understand the unsteady aerodynamics of flapping wing flight. The issues inherent to animal experiments, such as poor controllability and unnatural flapping when tethered, can be avoided by using…
We present here a model for multivalent diffusive transport whereby a central point-like hub is coupled to multiple feet, which bind to complementary sites on a two-dimensional landscape. The available number of binding interactions is…
Piezo ion channels underlie many forms of mechanosensation in vertebrates, and have been found to bend the membrane into strongly curved dome shapes. We develop here a methodology describing the self-assembly of lipids and Piezo into…