The development of engineered active colloids that harness the chemical energy of the environment to move has enabled one to mimic and dissect mechanisms in biological systems while opening doors to multiple applications: bioremediation, micromixing, micromachinery, drug delivery, and more. However, the application of active colloids for biomedical applications must consider the complex nature...
Systems containing active components are intrinsically out of equilibrium, while binary mixtures reach their equilibrium configuration when complete phase separation is achieved. Active particles are found to stabilise non-equilibrium morphologies in phase separating binary mixtures by arresting coarsening, exerting active pressure that competes with surface tension driving forces. For...
In the last years, the use of nanomaterials in different fields has been continuously expanding due to their unique properties. Particularly, they play a crucial role as controlled drug delivery systems in medical applications. Among them, mesoporous silica nanoparticles are widely utilized due to their high loading capacity and ease of functionalization, enabling the incorporation of...
Being groups of animals or populations of cells, active agents exhibit a fantastic richness of collective, or cooperative behaviour, responsible in many cases of providing function to biological or ecological systems. Can we develop predictive tools for these systems? Can we learn from them ways of fuctionalizing artificial materials? I'll address theses questions taking synthetic...
