相关论文: Pattern engineering of living bacterial colonies u…
Living active collectives have evolved with remarkable self-patterning ability to meet the physical and biological constraints for growth and survival. However, how complex multicellular patterns emerge from a single founder cell remains…
Strong control over experimental conditions in microfluidic channels provides a unique opportunity to study and optimize membraneless microbial fuel cells (MFCs), particularly with respect to the role of flow. However, improved performance…
Natural bacterial habitats are often complex fluids with viscoelastic and anisotropic responses to stress; for example, they can take the form of liquid crystals (LCs), with elongated microscopic constituents that collectively align while…
Recent experiments on active materials, such as dense bacterial suspensions and microtubule-kinesin motor mixtures, show a promising potential for achieving self-sustained flows. However, to develop active microfluidics it is necessary to…
Dense active matter, from bacterial suspensions and microtubule bundles driven by motor proteins to cellular monolayers and synthetic Janus particles, is characterised by mesoscale turbulence, the emergence of chaotic flow structures. By…
A biofilm is a self-contained community of bacteria that uses signaling molecules called autoinducers (AIs) to coordinate responses through the process of quorum sensing. Biofilms exhibit a dual role that drives interest in both combating…
Living systems continuously sense, integrate, and act on chemical information using multiscale biochemical networks whose dynamics are inherently nonlinear, adaptive, and energy-efficient. Yet, most attempts to harness such "wetware" for…
We propose a modeling approach to study how mature biofilms spread and colonize new surfaces by predicting the formation and growth of satellite colonies generated by dispersing biofilms. This model provides the basis for better…
Many organisms form colonies for a transient period of time to withstand environmental pressure. Bacterial biofilms are a prototypical example of such behavior. Despite significant interest across disciplines, physical mechanisms governing…
Active processes drive and guide biological dynamics across scales -- from subcellular cytoskeletal remodelling, through tissue development in embryogenesis, to population-level bacterial colonies expansion. In each of these, biological…
Surface-driven flows are ubiquitous in nature, from subcellular cytoplasmic streaming to organ-scale ciliary arrays. Here, we model how confined geometries can be used to engineer complex hydrodynamic patterns driven by activity prescribed…
The lack of a simple operable method for longitudinal dynamic self-assembly of particles in a microchannel is one of the main problems in applying this technology to a wide range of researches, such as biomedical engineering, material…
In some conditions, bacteria self-organise into biofilms, supracellular structures made of a self-produced embedding matrix, mainly composed on polysaccharides, DNA, proteins and lipids. It is known that bacteria change their colony/matrix…
The evolutionary success of bacteria lies in their ability to form complex surface-associated communities in diverse biophysical settings. However, it remains poorly understood how compliance of soft surfaces, measured in terms of their…
Microfluidic channels have emerged as useful tools to control dynamic forcing on transported microscale objects, as encountered in emulsions, biological flows, and other soft matter systems. Tailored channel designs enable precise…
Bacillus subtilis biofilms were grown in laminar channel flow at wall shear stress spanning one order of magnitude ($\tau_w = 0.068$ Pa to $\tau_w = 0.67$ Pa). We monitor, non-invasively, the evolution of the three-dimensional distribution…
The enteric bacterium Proteus mirabilis, which is a pathogen that forms biofilms in vivo, can swarm over hard surfaces and form concentric ring patterns in colonies. Colony formation involves two distinct cell types: swarmer cells that…
For the manufacturing of thin films of solution-processable organic semiconductors, e.g. for organic photovoltaics (OPV), meniscus guided-coating techniques are the method of choice for large-scale industrial applications. However, the…
Nutrient gradients and limitations play a pivotal role in the life of all microbes, both in their natural habitat as well as in artificial, microfluidic systems. Spatial concentration gradients of nutrients in densely packed cell…
The concept and synthesis approach for planar Compliant Fluidic Control Structures (CFCSs), monolithic flexible continua with embedded functional pores, is presented in this manuscript. Such structures are envisioned to find application in…