WE Heraeus - Lorentz Workshop — Molecules to Machines: Emergent Behavior of Active Filaments

Self-driven or active polymers and filaments are ubiquitous in biology across length scales, from chromatin in the nucleus to cytoskeletal filaments such as actin and microtubules, and from motile filamentous cyanobacteria to macroscopic worms. Inspired by these systems, synthetic analogs such as biomimetic robotic worms and robotic grippers or active materials based on cytoskeletal filaments have been developed. These systems display diverse structural and dynamic behaviors, both individually and collectively: examples include spiral and helical conformations, vortex formation in motor-driven microtubules, coexisting ordered states in actin-myosin networks, morphogenesis of cyanobacterial colonies during blooms, dynamical neural-motor loops in C. elegans, and emergent collective locomotion in worm blobs.

Topics: This workshop will bring together leading scientists from multiple fields to identify common features of active filament systems, clarify the mechanisms driving their self-organization, and define overarching open questions.