Quantifying collective transport in live active matter

Quantifying collective transport in live active matter
Maria Kilfoil, UMass Amherst
Date and time: Wed, Nov 18, 2015 - 4:00pm
Refreshments at 3:45pm
Location: Hasbrouck 124
Category: Departmental Colloquium
Abstract:
Currently there is a huge gap in our understanding of how adaptive mechanical response of active materials can emerge from the fundamental properties of the individual components. Active materials from biological systems are driven by their native motors which act to do mechanical work in the cell. Biological molecular motors have been intensively studied in recent years and currently the single-molecule dynamics of motor proteins is well described. Although the properties of individual molecules are very useful, in biological systems motor proteins typically function in large teams. This underlines the importance of understanding the collective behavior of molecular motors. In this talk, I will present experimental results in my lab on the collective properties of three different classes of active systems, designed to explore collective behavior of motors acting incoherently, coherently, and minimally, respectively. I will define these terms.