Smart, Living & Active Matter - Leiden

About us

The SLAM - Smart, Living, & Active Matter - initiative unites theory and experimental groups of the Leiden Institute of Physics. It currently gathers the groups of Luca Giomi, Louise Jawerth, Daniela Kraft, Martin van Hecke, Silke Henkes and Alexandre Morin.

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Coming up next

2026-09-24 - 11:30 @ BM2.27

SLAM Seminar: Yahor Savich

Title: From molecular springs to a pre-stressed shell: how a surface hydrogel reinforces the cell nucleus Abstract: How mechanical stress is buffered across scales, from a single polymer strand to the whole nucleus, is an open physical problem. I will present the theory side of a project that started from one measurement. Nuclear envelope proteins assemble into a layer on a single DNA molecule held at constant force, and raise that force in proportion to its initial value. The proportionality follows if the proteins act as Hookean springs in parallel. Coarse-grained, they give a mesoscale surface hydrogel that protein self-association holds below its strain-free area. From the measured single-molecule stiffness we build a minimal continuum surface model whose nuclear shapes and area stiffness agree with experiment: a pre-stressed elastic shell that reinforces the nucleus and buffers stress across scales. I will close with an imaging technique we are developing to ask whether a surface hydrogel also governs the air–water interface of aquatic ecosystems.

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