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Welcome! We're theoretical physicists, working to understand the stuff that we are all made of: soft biological matter. Stuff like proteins, polymers, membranes, fibrous networks and, ultimately, tissues. We're interested in their structure, how they self-assemble, how they deform, how they fail, how they generate forces, how they sense their surroundings and finally, how we may learn from Nature and mimick their design and properties.

In biological materials, these issues generally span multiple scales - both spatial and temporal. We try to cover the essential physics at each of these scales, with particular attention to tying them together into a single, coherent multiscale scheme. Topics in the group run the range from single motors and protein polymers all the way to tissue-scale finite element studies.

(April 2011) Liesbeth succesfully defended her PhD Thesis entitled "Simulations of biopolymer networks under shear". A pdf may be downloaded here. Congratulations Liesbeth!

(Feb 2011) Li'ao completes her BSc work in our group with a thesis on "The radial distribution function of multiply crosslinked, semiflexible polymers". She's leaving Eindhoven to pursue a Masters in Theoretical Physics in Utrecht. Congratulations, and best of luck Li'ao!

(Dec 2010) Jonathan successfully presented and defended his MSc thesis "Simulating Biopolymer Networks: Towards Mobile Crosslinkers". He will receive his degree on Dec 22; congratulations Jonathan!

(Nov 2010) Henry paper "Off-lattice Monte Carlo simulation of supramolecular polymer architectures" on the TRACTRIX algorithm we're applying to collagen, was accepted for Phys. Rev. Lett. The paper is now online. Congratulations, Henry!

(Nov 2010) Liesbeth's paper "Dynamical simulation of biopolymer networks: A non-affine to affine transition leading to network stiffening" detailing our first attempts at dynamical simulations was accepted for Phys. Rev. E. The paper is now online. Congratulations, Liesbeth!

(Nov 2010) Wouter Ellenbroek is awarded the prestigious VENI grant. He has received Euro 247.000 to delve into like-charge attractions in soft matter. Congratulations, Wouter!

Henry Amuasi PhD Student	Adi Cioroianu PhD Student	Wouter Ellenbroek Postdoc (Veni)
Francisco Fontenele Araujo jr. Postdoc	Ralph Klaasse BSc Student	Hamed Mortazavi PhD Student
Liza Novikova PhD Student	Kees Storm Asst. Prof.

Where are they now?

Li'ao Wang, B.Sc. - Masters in Theoretical Physics at Utrecht University
Jonathan de Vries, M.Sc. - Exploring options in Medical Physics
dr. Liesbeth Huisman - consultant at McKinsey & Company
dr. Timon Idema - postdoc in Andrea Liu's group at Penn
dr. Stefan Semrau (with Schmidt) - now a postdoc in the van Oudenaarden group at M.I.T.

We're a part of several collaborative efforts and consortia. Here are some of our friends and coworkers elsewhere

- The Institute for Complex Molecular Systems at TU/e, Eindhoven

- FOM/DPI/TIFN Industrial Partnership Programme "Bio-Related Materials"

- FOM Programme "Mechanosensing and Mechanotransduction by Cells"

- Koenderink "Biological Soft Matter" group at AMOLF, Amsterdam

- Schmidt "Physics of Life Processes" group in Leiden

- Wyss "Soft Materials" group at TU/e, Eindhoven

- Sijbesma "Supramolecular Polymer Chemistry" group at TU/e, Eindhoven

- (Since Nov 2010) SoftComp EU Network of Excellence.