PhD Comprehensive Seminar | Aiden Huffman, From Forces to Functions II: Investigating how Active Droplets can Perform Tasks

M3 4206

Candidate

Aiden Huffman| Applied Mathematics, University of Waterloo

Title

From Forces to Functions II: Investigating how Active Droplets can Perform Tasks

Abstract

Active droplets and biological condensates are a class of physical systems generally consisting of liquid-liquid phase separations. When a droplet forms, it can create chemical concentration gradient between itself and the surrounding environment. Researchers have successfully used biological condensates to isolate enzymes, thereby producing mobile "microreactors." Surprisingly, the droplets mobility is self-generated; which, is a result of the chemical gradients produced by the paritioned enzyme.

Our research investigates active droplets and is motivated by three distinct experimental results. Each experiment involves liquid droplets in a bulk fluid or microfluidic device. They pose questions about chemical reactions and the transport of chemical reagents in liquid-liquid phase separations, the organization and pattern formation of collections of droplets, and our ability to influence microfluidic flows for mixing. We will also connect our investigation to relevant literature for similar systems as a way to provide motivation for our design decisions. Finally, we will provide some initial discoveries with simplified models and discuss our approach for simulating the full physical models.