生物物理
Extreme deformations of the DNA double helix attracted a lot of attention during the past decades. Particularly, the determination of the persistence length of DNA with extreme local disruptions, or kinks, has become a crucial problem in…
Phase transitions, such as the freezing of water and the magnetisation of a ferromagnet upon lowering the ambient temperature, are familiar physical phenomena. Interestingly, such a collective change of behaviour at a phase transition is…
For the past decade, droplet interface bilayers (DIBs) have had an increased prevalence in biomolecular and biophysical literature. However, much of the underlying physics of these platforms are poorly characterized. To further the…
The mobility of membrane proteins controls many biological functions. The application of the model of Saffman and Delbr\"uck to the diffusion of membrane proteins does not account for all the experimental measurements. These discrepancies…
Most biological molecules contain acido-basic groups that modulate their structure and interactions. A consequence is that pH gradients, local heterogeneities and dynamic variations are used by cells and organisms to drive or regulate…
Many microorganisms and artificial microswimmers use helical appendages in order to generate locomotion. Though often rotated so as to produce thrust, some species of bacteria such Spiroplasma, Rhodobacter sphaeroides and Spirochetes induce…
A fast and accurate grid-based method with low memory requirement is presented to calculate volume characteristics in molecular systems. The distribution of volume and packing density is characterized in globular proteins, where void space…
The rotary motor of bacteria is a natural nano-technological marvel that enables cell locomotion by powering the rotation of semi-rigid helical flagellar filaments in fluid environments. It is well known that the motor operates essentially…
The evolution of antimicrobial resistance generally occurs in an environment where antimicrobial concentration is variable, which has dramatic consequences on the microorganisms' fitness landscape, and thus on the evolution of resistance.…
Optogenetics has emerged as an exciting tool for manipulating neural activity, which in turn, can modulate behavior in live organisms. However, detecting the response to the optical stimulation requires electrophysiology with physical…
Neurons have the capability of transforming information from a digital signal at the dendrites of the presynaptic termi- nal to an analogous wave at the synaptic cleft and back to a digital pulse when they achieve the required voltage for…
Symmetry is closely intertwined with the function, genetics, and chemical properties of multiprotein complexes. Here, we explore the relation between structural symmetry and the ability of membrane proteins to sense and induce membrane…
Flows over remarkably long distances are crucial to the functioning of many organisms, across all kingdoms of life. Coordinated flows are fundamental to power deformations, required for migration or development, or to spread resources and…
Several important biological processes are initiated by the binding of a protein to a specific site on the DNA. The strategy adopted by a protein, called transcription factor (TF), for searching its specific binding site on the DNA has been…
The effect of air viscosity on the flow around an insect wing increases as insect size decreases. For the smallest insects (wing length R below 1 mm), the viscous effect is so large that lift-generation mechanisms used by their larger…
We analyze the fluctuation of the number of individuals when two competing species, beginning with a few initial individuals, are submitted to a logistic growth. We show that when the total number of individuals reaches the carrying…
We develop a clear theoretical description of radial swelling in virus-like particles which delineates the importance of electrostatic contributions to swelling in absence of any conformational changes. The model couples the elastic…
Molecular motors of the kinesin-1 family move in a directed and processive fashion along microtubules (MTs). It is generally accepted that steric hindrance of motors leads to crowding effects; however, little is known about the specific…
Preserving biodiversity and ecosystem stability is a challenge that can be pursued through modern statistical mechanics modeling. Here we introduce a variational maximum entropy-based algorithm to evaluate the entropy in a minimal ecosystem…
Foraging, either solitarily or collectively, is a necessary behavior for survival that is demonstrated by many organisms. Foraging can be collectively optimized by utilizing communication between the organisms. Examples of such…