Geometric confinements are frequently encountered in soft matter systems and in particular
significantly alter the dynamics of swimming microorganisms in viscous media. Surface …

Hydrodynamic interactions are important in biophysics research because they influence
both the collective and the individual behavior of micro-organisms and self-propelled …

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 …

It is well known that flagellated bacteria swim in circles near surfaces. However, recent
experiments have shown that a sulfide-oxidizing bacterium named Thiovulum majus can …

Most motile bacteria swim in viscous fluids by rotating multiple helical flagellar filaments.
These semirigid filaments repeatedly join (“bundle”) and separate (“unbundle”), resulting in …

Fluid flow along microchannels can be induced by keeping opposite walls at different
temperatures and placing elongated tilted pillars inside the channel. The driving force for …

Microfluidics devices are gaining significant interest in biomedical applications. However, in
a micron-scale device, reaction speed is often limited by the slow rate of diffusion of the …

Individuals tend to move freely when there is enough room but would act collectively for their
survival under external stress. In the case of living cells, for instance, when a drop of low …

Microscopic-scale swimming has been a very active area of research in the last couple of
decades. The interest in this topic has been driven partly by experimental advances, which …

This dissertation contains original research on a range of problems involving the locomotion
of different types of microswimmers, including both biological microorganisms and artificial …