Researchers Progress in Manipulating Microparticle Movement to Engineer Living Matter

A group of scientists has developed a system that mimics the movements found in natural phenomena, such as hurricanes and algae, using laser beams and the rotation of microscopic rotors. This groundbreaking achievement, documented in the journal Nature Communications, provides new insights into the replication of living matter on a cellular scale. Matan Yah Ben Zion, formerly a doctoral student in New York University’s Department of Physics and one of the authors of the paper, explains, “Living organisms are made of materials that actively pump energy through their molecules, producing a range of movements on a larger cellular scale.

By engineering cellular-scale machines from the ground up, our work can offer new insights into the complexity of the natural world.” The study focuses on vortical flows observed in both biological and meteorological systems, such as algae or hurricanes. Specifically, particles undergo orbital motion within the flow generated by their own rotation, resulting in a variety of complex interactions. To comprehend these dynamics at their most fundamental level, the researchers, including Alvin Modin, an NYU undergraduate at the time of the study and now a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins University, and Paul Chaikin, an NYU physics professor, aimed to replicate them.

They achieved this by creating tiny micro-rotors—approximately 1/10th the width of a human hair strand—to move micro-particles using a laser beam (a process devised in a previous work by Chaikin and his colleagues). The team observed that the rotating particles influenced each other into orbital motion, closely resembling dynamics seen in “dancing” algae—groups of algae that move in coordinated patterns. Furthermore, the NYU researchers discovered that the spins of the particles reciprocated as they orbited.

“The spins of the synthetic particles reciprocate in the same fashion as that observed in algae—in contrast to previous work with artificial micro-rotors,” explains Ben Zion, now a researcher at Tel Aviv University. “So we were able to reproduce synthetically—and on the micron scale—an effect that is seen in living systems.” “Collectively, these findings suggest that the dance of algae can be reproduced in a synthetic system, better establishing our understanding of living matter,” he adds.

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