Chitin, as the main component of the exoskeleton of Arthropoda, is a highly available natural
polymer that can be processed into various value-added products. Its most important …

An introduction to the physical properties of living active matter at the mesoscopic scale
(tens of nanometers to micrometers) and their unique features compared with “dead,” …

The surface of a living cell provides a platform for receptor signaling, protein sorting,
transport, and endocytosis, whose regulation requires the local control of membrane …

Actomyosin-dependent mitotic rounding occurs in both cell culture and tissue, where it is
involved in cell positioning and epithelial organization. How actomyosin is regulated to …

We study a reconstituted composite system consisting of an active microtubule network
interdigitated with a passive network of entangled F-actin filaments. Increasing the …

Most mammalian neurons have a narrow axon, which constrains the passage of large
cargoes such as autophagosomes that can be larger than the axon diameter. Radial axonal …

Molecular self-assembly of peptides into ordered nanotubes is highly important for various
technological applications. Very short peptide building blocks, as short as dipeptides, can …

Computer simulations can aid in understanding how collective materials properties emerge
from interactions between simple constituents. Here, we introduce a coarse-grained model …

Living systems adopt a diversity of curved and highly dynamic shapes. These diverse
morphologies appear on many length scales, from cells to tissues and organismal scales …

When seeded in fibrous gels, pairs of cells or cell aggregates can induce bands of deformed
gel, extending to surprisingly long distances in the intercellular medium. The formation of …