Physics of Living Systems

At each cell division, nanometer-scale components self-organize to build a micron-scale spindle. In mammalian spindles, microtubule bundles called kinetochore-fibers attach to chromosomes and focus into spindle poles. Despite evidence suggesting that p…

As a cell changes size during the cell cycle, why does its density remain constant?

Cellular growth is the result of passive physical constraints and active biological processes. Their interplay leads to the appearance of robust and ubiquitous scaling laws relating linearly cell size, dry mass, and nuclear size. Despite accumulating e…

A chemical regularly used to image cells can dramatically alter the way cellular compartments called condensates look under the microscope.

Motile cilia are hair-like cell extensions that beat periodically to generate fluid flow along various epithelial tissues within the body. In dense multiciliated carpets, cilia were shown to exhibit a remarkable coordination of their beat in the form o…

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and can affect multiple organs, among which is the circulatory system. Inflammation and mortality risk markers were previously detected in…

Inside prokaryotic cells, passive translational diffusion typically limits the rates with which cytoplasmic proteins can reach their locations. Diffusion is thus fundamental to most cellular processes, but the understanding of protein mobility in the h…

Fixing cells with paraformaldehyde (PFA) is an essential step in numerous biological techniques as it is thought to preserve a snapshot of biomolecular transactions in living cells. Fixed cell imaging techniques such as immunofluorescence have been wid…

During cell division, the spindle generates force to move chromosomes. In mammals, microtubule bundles called kinetochore-fibers (k-fibers) attach to and segregate chromosomes. To do so, k-fibers must be robustly anchored to the dynamic spindle. We pre…