A6.2025: Flow patterns in actomyosin droplets – routes to self-propulsion
Collaborating PIs:: Sarah Köster, Claudia Steinem, Timo Betz, Peter Sollich, Anne Wald
Overarching research question: How does self-propulsion depend on architecture and active force generation of a geometrically confined actomyosin network?
This project aims to create artificial model systems of varying complexity to investigate the flow and contractility of confined actomyosin networks in the presence of actin-binding proteins and intermediate filaments. The entangled hybrid network will allow us to explore regions in the contractility-connectivity phase diagram that were previously inaccessible. Key questions we aim to address include: Will the networks phase-separate, and will cooperative non-linear effects emerge, and if so, on what time scales? To answer these questions, we plan to conduct rheological studies combined with the analysis of active flow behavior. The latter will lead us to understand the self-propelled motion of active gels in confined geometry. Our aim is to identify out-of-equilibrium fluctuations in active gels and to show how flow profiles develop in active systems using appropriate tracers.
Core field: experimental biophysics
PhD training objectives: rheology (dynamic light scattering, diffusive wave spectroscopy, rheometry, video particle tracking, optical tweezers, acoustic force spectroscopy, AFM-based active microrheology); optical imaging; scanning probe techniques; data analysis (image processing, AI based detection).