Abstract

The molecular machinery of life is largely created via self-organisation of individual molecules into functional larger-scaled assemblies. Such processes are multi-scale in nature and constantly driven far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Our group develops minimal coarse-grained models to investigate how driven macromolecular assemblies result in living machines, and how such processes can fail, leading to diseases.

Today I will present our research on computational modelling of active elastic protein filaments that dynamically change their conformations to reshape and cut cells. I will present the comparison of our simulation results to live cell data on reshaping processes across evolution — from cellular trafficking to cell division. I will finish with our recent efforts in computationally evolving assemblies that perform a desired function. Beyond their biological context, our models can help guide the design of artificial structures that are able to mimic life at the nanoscale.