“Active colloidal particles in emulsion droplets: A model system for the cytoplasm,” co-authored by Assistant Professor of Physics Viva Horowitz, was recently published in The European Physical Journal Special Topics.
Written with colleagues at Harvard University, the University of Oslo, and Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, the article describes the authors’ work to create artificial cells that mimic the molecular motors that create activity to enhance the diffusion of particles throughout the cytoplasm in living cells.
According to the researchers, results from this work “point the way forward toward a model system that can be used to understand active transport in living cells, where the motion of motors can significantly enhance the diffusion of unattached particles within the cytoplasm.”
