Cells are integral to all forms of life due to their compartmentalization by the plasma
membrane. However, living organisms are immensely complex. Thus there is a need for …

Cellular engulfment and uptake of macromolecular assemblies or nanoparticles via
endocytosis can be associated to both healthy and disease-related biological processes as …

Thirty years after their invention by Arthur Ashkin and colleagues at Bell Labs in 1986 [1],
optical tweezers (or traps) have become a versatile tool to address numerous biological …

The physical approach of a small particle (virus, medical drug) to the cell membrane
represents the crucial first step before active internalization and is governed by thermal …

Biological membranes and lipid vesicles often display complex shapes with non-uniform
membrane curvature. When adhesive nanoparticles with chemically uniform surfaces come …

Phagocytic particle uptake is crucial for the fate of both living cells and pathogens. Invading
particles have to overcome fluctuating lipid membranes as the first physical barrier …

Using a fully analytical theory, we compute the leading-order corrections to the translational,
rotational and translation–rotation coupling mobilities of an arbitrary axisymmetric particle …

The molecular processes of particle binding and endocytosis are influenced by the locally
changing mobility of the particle nearby the plasma membrane of a living cell. However, it is …

Elastic confinements play an important role in many soft matter systems and affect the
transport properties of suspended particles in viscous flow. On the basis of low-Reynolds …

We study the motion of a solid particle immersed in a Newtonian fluid and confined between
two parallel elastic membranes possessing shear and bending rigidity. The hydrodynamic …