生物物理
In soft matter science, it is often the goal to design new materials with targeted properties. These materials can be used in many applications, each requiring specific features to be optimized for maximum fitness. The use of self-assembly…
In this commentary, we argue that El Hady and Machta's "surface wave" model for mechanical waves accompanying action potential (AP) propagation describes the same underlying process as the "axoplasmic pressure wave" model introduced earlier…
The timing of human labor is among the most critical determinants of neonatal survival, yet the mechanisms that govern the transition from uterine quiescence to coordinated contractions remain elusive. Here we present a dynamical-systems…
The majority of machine learning scoring functions used in drug discovery for predicting protein-ligand binding poses and affinities have been trained on the PDBBind dataset. However, it is unclear whether these new scoring functions are…
The mechanisms of cold- and pressure-denaturation of proteins are matter of debate and are commonly understood as due to water-mediated interactions. Here we study several cases of proteins, with or without a unique native state, with or…
Oscillatory biochemical signals and mechanical forces must coordinate robustly during development, yet the principles governing their mutual coupling remain poorly understood. In syncytial embryos and cell-free extracts, mitotic waves…
In active matter and living matter, such as clusters of migrating cells, collective dynamics emerges from the underlying interactions. A common assumption of theoretical descriptions of collective cell migration is that these interactions…
Nanoplastics (NPs) are increasingly detected in human blood and organs at concentrations reaching hundreds to thousands of parts per million, yet no quantitative framework has linked short-term experimental uptake kinetics to long-term,…
Brain networks exhibit remarkable structural properties, including high local clustering, short path lengths, and heavy-tailed weight and degree distributions. While these features are thought to enable efficient information processing with…
Transcription factor concentrations provide signals to cells that allow them to regulate gene expression to make correct cell fate decisions. Calculations for noise bounds in gene regulation suggest that clustering or cooperative binding of…
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,…
Phase separation of biomolecular condensates promotes membrane-free compartmentalization in cells. The dynamics of these biocondensates is routinely regulated by energy-consuming processes. Here, we devise a theory pinpointing how active…
By 2025, holotomography (HT) has matured from a niche optical modality into a versatile platform for quantitative, label-free imaging in biomedicine. By reconstructing the three-dimensional refractive-index (RI) distribution of cells and…
Networks of heterogeneous oscillators are often seen to display collective synchronized oscillations, even when single elements of the network do not oscillate in isolation. It has been found that it is the diversity of the individual…
The mechanical properties of oocytes are regarded as important indicators of their developmental potential. During fertilization, deviations from the normal mechanical range can hinder sperm penetration, ultimately reducing fertilization…
Single molecule spectroscopy (SMS) revealed unusually large gap between two major exciton peaks of the B850 unit of light harvesting complex 2 (LH2), which could be explained assuming elliptic distortion or k=2 symmetry modulation in the…
Biological electron transfer (ET) relies on quantum mechanical tunnelling through a dynamically folded protein. Yet, the spatiotemporal coupling between structural fluctuations and electron flux remains poorly understood, largely due to…
Traditional cellular force-sensing techniques, such as traction force microscopy (TFM), are predominantly limited to measuring linear tractions, overlooking and technically unable to capture the nanoscale torsional forces that are critical…
Adhesion-independent migration is a prominent mode of cell motility in confined environments, yet the physical principles that guide such movement remain incompletely understood. We present a phase-field model for simulating the motility of…
In silico, cell based approaches for modeling biological morphogenesis are used to test and validate our understanding of the biological and mechanical process that are at work during the growth and the organization of multi-cell tissues.…