ZrCuAg Thin-Film Metallic Glasses: Toward Biostatic Durable Advanced Surfaces.

A combinatorial approach has served as a high-throughput strategy to identify compositional windows with optimized desired properties. Here, ZrCuAg thin-film metallic glasses were deposited by DC magnetron sputtering. For the purpose of using these coatings as biomedical surfaces, their durability in terms of mechanical and physicochemical properties as well as antibacterial properties were characterized.

Jumping acoustic bubbles on lipid bilayers.

In the context of sonoporation, we use supported lipid bilayers as a model for biological membranes and investigate the interactions between the bilayer and microbubbles induced by ultrasound. Among the various types of damage caused by bubbles on the surface, our experiments exhibit a singular dynamic interaction process where bubbles are jumping on the bilayer, forming a necklace pattern of alteration on the membrane. This phenomenon was explored with different time and space resolutions and, based on our observations, we propose a model for a microbubble subjected to the combined action of van der Waals, acoustic and hydrodynamic forces.

A contractile and counterbalancing adhesion system controls the 3D shape of crawling cells.

How adherent and contractile systems coordinate to promote cell shape changes is unclear. Here, we define a counterbalanced adhesion/contraction model for cell shape control. Live-cell microscopy data showed a crucial role for a contractile meshwork at the top of the cell, which is composed of actin arcs and myosin IIA filaments.

Intracellular stresses in patterned cell assemblies.

Confining cells on adhesive patterns allows performing robust, weakly dispersed, statistical analysis. A priori, adhesive patterns could be efficient tools to analyze intracellular cell stress fields, in particular when patterns are used to force the geometry of the cytoskeleton. This tool could then be very helpful in deciphering the relationship between the internal architecture of the cells and the mechanical, intracellular stresses.