Concept

Bacterial motility

Related publications (41)

Direct measurement of Lighthill's energetic efficiency of a minimal magnetic microswimmer

The realization of artificial microscopic swimmers able to propel in viscous fluids is an emergent research field of fundamental interest and vast technological applications. For certain functionalities, the efficiency of the microswimmer in converting the ...

2019

The type IV pilus protein PilU functions as a PilT-dependent retraction ATPase

Melanie Blokesch, Sandrine Stutzmann, Candice Stoudmann, David William Adams, Jorge André Matias Pereira

Type IV pili are dynamic cell surface appendages found throughout the bacteria. The ability of these structures to undergo repetitive cycles of extension and retraction underpins their crucial roles in adhesion, motility and natural competence for transfor ...

2019

The Hydrodynamics of a Micro-Rocket Propelled by a Deformable Bubble

François Gallaire, Lailai Zhu, Giacomo Gallino

We perform simulations to study the hydrodynamics of a conical-shaped swimming micro-robot that ejects catalytically produced bubbles from its inside. We underline the nontrivial dependency of the swimming velocity on the bubble deformability and on the ge ...

2019

Adaptive locomotion of artificial microswimmers

Mahmut Selman Sakar, Fazil Emre Uslu

Bacteria can exploit mechanics to display remarkable plasticity in response to locally changing physical and chemical conditions. Compliant structures play a notable role in their taxis behavior, specifically for navigation inside complex and structured en ...

2019

When droplets deform, break up and propel microswimmers

Giacomo Gallino

This thesis investigates the motion and breakup of droplets in low-Reynolds-number flows, focusing on two aspects. In the first part, we study the breakup of droplets in subcritical flow conditions, when there exists a linearly stable solution for the drop ...

EPFL2018

Bacteria-induced mixing in natural waters

Alfred Johny Wüest, Oscar Rodrigo Sepúlveda Steiner, Talia Ekin Tokyay Sinha

Swimming organisms can enhance mixing in their natural environments by creating eddies in their wake and by dragging water along. However, these mixing mechanisms are inefficient for microorganisms, because swimming-induced variations in velocity, temperat ...

2017

Soft micromachines with programmable motility and morphology

Mahmut Selman Sakar

Nature provides a wide range of inspiration for building mobile micromachines that can navigate through confined heterogenous environments and perform minimally invasive environmental and biomedical operations. For example, microstructures fabricated in th ...

2016

Structured light enables biomimetic swimming and versatile locomotion of photoresponsive soft microrobots

Peer Fischer, Tian Qiu, Hao Zeng

Microorganisms move in challenging environments by periodic changes in body shape. In contrast, current artificial microrobots cannot actively deform, exhibiting at best passive bending under external fields. Here, by taking advantage of the wireless, scal ...

Nature Publishing Group2016

Microarrays for the study of compartmentalized microorganisms in alginate microbeads and (W/O/W) double emulsions

Esther Amstad, Gianluca Nicolas Etienne, Armend Gazmeno Hati

Understanding of cells has mainly been achieved through analysis of average properties of large cellular populations. The increased awareness of cellular heterogeneity in various biological systems, spans from single bacterial cells to human tissue calls f ...

RSC Publishing2016

Deformation of a soft helical filament in an axial flow at low Reynolds number

Pedro Miguel Nunes Pereira de Almeida Reis

We perform a numerical investigation of the deformation of a rotating helical filament subjected to an axial flow, under low Reynolds number conditions, motivated by the propulsion of bacteria using helical flagella. Given its slenderness, the helical rod ...

Royal Society of Chemistry2016

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