生物物理
Red blood cells (RBCs) -- erythrocytes -- suspended in plasma tend to aggregate and form rouleaux. During aggregation the first stage consists in the formation of RBC doublets [Blood cells, molecules, and diseases 25, 339 (1999)]. While…
Biological systems are robust to perturbations at both the genetic and environmental levels. Yet, these same perturbations can elicit variation in behavior. The interplay between functional robustness and behavioral variability is…
We introduce a statistical and linear response theory of selective conduction in biological ion channels with multiple binding sites and possible point mutations. We derive an effective grand-canonical ensemble and generalised Einstein…
Protein structure prediction has been a grand challenge for over 50 years, owing to its broad scientific and application interests. There are two primary types of modeling algorithms, template-free modeling and template-based modeling. The…
Healthy cartilage is a remarkable tissue, able to withstand tens of millions of loading cycles with minimal damage. While much is known about the structural origins of its compressive mechanics, how composition determines its mechanical…
Through inhalation of, e.g., hyperpolarized $^3$He, it is possible to acquire gas diffusion magnetic resonance measurements that depend on the local geometry in the vast network of microscopic airways that form the respiratory zone of the…
We demonstrate novel instrumentation for spontaneous Raman spectroscopy in biofluids, enabling development of a portable, automated, reliable diagnostics technique requiring minimal operator expertise to quantify disease markers. Label-free…
We use a theoretical approach to examine the effect of a radial fluid flow or electric current on the growth and homeostasis of a cell spheroid. Such conditions may be generated by a drain of micrometric diameter. To perform this analysis,…
Large-scale ecotoxicological studies have technical and ethical limitations, both related to the need to expose individuals to potentially harmful compounds. Computational modeling is a complementary useful and predictive tool that…
Fine-grain patterns produced by juxtacrine signalling, have been studied using static monolayers as cellular domains. Unfortunately, analytical results are restricted to a few cells due to the algebraic complexity of nonlinear dynamical…
Theoretical understanding of evolutionary dynamics in spatially structured populations often relies on non-spatial models. Biofilms are among such populations where a more accurate understanding is of theoretical interest and can reveal new…
The photo-triggered unbinding of the intrinsically disordered S-peptide from the RNase S complex is studied with the help of transient IR spectroscopy, covering a wide range of time scales from 100 ps to 10 ms. To that end, an azobenzene…
Many problems in physics, biology, and economics depend upon the duration of time required for a diffusing particle to cross a boundary. As such, calculations of the distribution of first passage time, and in particular the mean first…
Finding the fastest path to a desired destination is a vitally important task for microorganisms moving in a fluid flow. We study this problem by building an analytical formalism for overdamped microswimmers on curved manifolds and…
Biological cells estimate concentration gradients of signaling molecules with a precision that is limited not only by sensing noise, but additionally by the cell's own stochastic motion. We ask for the theoretical limits of gradient…
The soil bacterium Myxococcus xanthus lives in densely packed groups that form dynamic three-dimensional patterns in response to environmental changes, such as droplet-like fruiting bodies during starvation. The development of these…
We study the Brownian motion of an assembly of mobile inclusions embedded in a fluid membrane. The motion includes the dispersal of the assembly, accompanied by the diffusion of its center of mass. Usually, the former process is much faster…
Actin and spectrin are important constituents of axonal cytoskeleton. Periodic actin and spectrin structures are found in dendrites, initial segment of axon, and main axon. Actin and spectrin periodicity has been hypothesized to be…
We experimentally showed that biological molecular motor F$_1$-ATPase (F$_1$) implements an optimal rectification mechanism. F$_1$ hardly suppresses adenosine triphosphate (ATP) synthesis, which is the F$_1$'s physiological role while…
DNA strand displacement, where a single-stranded nucleic acid invades a DNA duplex, is pervasive in genomic processes and DNA engineering applications. The kinetics of strand displacement have been studied in bulk; however, the kinetics of…