Tales of motion at the microscale: microbots, bacteria and phage viruses

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• Panayiota Katsamba, Birmingham
• Thursday 22 November 2018, 13:00-14:00
• Watson LTB.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Fabian Spill.

In the microcosmos of artificial microbots, bacteria and viruses, the intriguingly different physics at play give rise to swimming strategies that are very different from our everyday experience, such as the rotation of a helical filament that propels bacteria. Bio-inspired microswimmers that achieve propulsion at the microscale have promising applications in non-invasive medicine, for example drug delivery to tumours or microsurgery. The first part of my talk will address the control and adaptivity features in the application-driven design of biomedical microbots. I will discuss two different classes of microbots: magnetically actuated, rotating helices, and our latest findings on a novel design of shape-transforming catalytic filaments. In the second part of the talk I will turn to the sub-bacterial scale of bacteriophage viruses, ‘phages’ for short, that infect bacteria. Given the rise in antibiotics resistance, phages can offer valuable insight into our fight against pathogenic bacteria and phage therapy is a possible alternative to antibiotics. I will discuss my recent work on a surprising infection strategy by which some phages manage to `ride’ along the propulsive machinery of bacteria and infect them.

This talk is part of the Applied Mathematics Seminar Series series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Applied Mathematics Seminar Series
• School of Mathematics events
• Watson LTB

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