生物物理
Single-molecule biophysics has transformed our understanding of the fundamental molecular processes involved in living biological systems, but also of the fascinating physics of life. Far more exotic than a collection of exemplars of soft…
Biological tissue has a complex structure and exhibits rich spectroscopic behavior. There is \emph{no} tissue model up to now able to account for the observed spectroscopy of tissue light scattering and its anisotropy. Here we present,…
Obtaining a detailed understanding of the physical interactions between a cell and its environment often requires information about the flow of fluid surrounding the cell. Cells must be able to effectively absorb and discard material in…
We propose a modelling framework to analyse the stochastic behaviour of heterogeneous, multi-scale cellular populations. We illustrate our methodology with a particular example in which we study a population with an oxygen-regulated…
This report describes the development of an aptamer for sensing azole antifungal drugs for therapeutic drug monitoring. Modified Synthetic Evolution of Ligands through Exponential Enrichment (SELEX) was used to discover a DNA aptamer…
The characterization of protein-nanoparticle assemblies in solution remains a challenge. We demonstrate a technique based on a graphene microelectrode for structural-functional analysis of model systems composed of nanoparticles enclosed in…
Mechanosensitive (MS) channels are ion channels which act as cells' safety valves, opening when the osmotic pressure becomes too high and making cells avoid damage by releasing ions. They are found on the cellular membrane of a large number…
The aim of this work is to propose a first coarse-grained model of Bacillus subtilis cell wall, handling explicitly the existence of multiple layers of peptidoglycans. In this first work, we aim at the validation of the recently proposed…
We describe a concept that has the potential to change how we think about the underlying mechanisms of cell membrane electroporation (EP). Prior experimental, theoretical and modeling have emphasized a single pore lifetime as adequate for…
We review some of the basic concepts and the possible pore structures associated with electroporation (EP) for times after electrical pulsing. We purposefully give only a short description of pore creation and subsequent evolution of pore…
Active dynamic processes of cells are largely driven by the cytoskeleton, a complex and adaptable semiflexible polymer network, motorized by mechanoenzymes. Small dimensions, confined geome- tries and hierarchical structures make it…
We introduce and analyze a model for osmotically spreading biofilm colonies at solid-air interfaces that includes wetting phenomena, i.e. surface forces. The model combines a hydrodynamic description for biologically passive liquid…
We report on the observation of a change in the bend angle of an RNA kissing complex upon Rop binding using single-molecular-pair FRET. The angular relationship between the dyes, rather than the distance between them, is shown to be…
The nucleus of the eukaryotic cell functions amidst active cytoskeletal filaments, but its response to the stresses carried by these filaments is largely unexplored. We report here the results of studies of the translational and rotational…
We present force-clamp data on the collapse of ubiquitin polyproteins in response to a quench in the force. These nonequilibrium trajectories are analyzed using a general method based on a diffusive assumption of the end-to-end length to…
The precise role of the microenvironment on tumor growth is poorly understood. Whereas the tumor is in constant competition with the surrounding tissue, little is known about the mechanics of this interaction. Using a novel experimental…
We study two designed and one natural zinc-finger peptide each with the Cys2His2 (CCHH) type of metal binding motif. In the approach we have developed, we describe the role of the protein and solvent outside the Zn(II)-CCHH metal-residue…
Unlike their model membrane counterparts, biological membranes are richly decorated with a heterogeneous assembly of membrane proteins. These proteins are so tightly packed that their excluded area interactions can alter the free energy…
Maximum entropy models are increasingly being used to describe the collective activity of neural populations with measured mean neural activities and pairwise correlations, but the full space of probability distributions consistent with…
How DNA is mapped to functional proteins is a basic question of living matter. We introduce and study a physical model of protein evolution which suggests a mechanical basis for this map. Many proteins rely on large-scale motion to…