There, we didn’t use sticky particles — it makes the experiments much easier to perform. It’s similar to the approach in the paper below:
pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....
Despite some limitations, the method is experimentally much more straightforward.

By the way, thank you for the very clear and simple explanation in the video. I keep recommending it to people whenever I talk about my PhD work :)

It is super interesting indeed, even for the linear order! Our last piece is still in progress — there we explored different shapes, and yes, we were definitely betting on it :))

🎥 For more background about this interaction, check out Markus Deserno’s great talk (link below) @markusdeserno.bsky.social

tinyurl.com/3hse4jdj

and the related papers from our group listed:
tinyurl.com/bddhrcax
tinyurl.com/nh9p9bbc
tinyurl.com/38dhasdw

🔗 Paper link below if you’d like the details.
doi.org/10.1039/d4sm...

🙌 Thanks to @danielajkraft.bsky.social for brilliant work and guidance, and to @leidenphysics.bsky.social for funding the project. Interested in membrane mechanics or how we perform experiments? Feel free to contact me.

💡 What we found
Gentle dents repel bumps, but deeper dents attract them.
The switch happens around a critical curvature—as predicted by theory but never measured before.
Forces are small yet strong enough to steer how curvature-making proteins cluster.

Model system = giant lipid vesicles + membrane adhesive beads + an optical-tweezer-pulled nanotube. Track the bead, map the interaction energy in comparison with thermal motion 🌌➡️🫧

What type of stage is this? Looks amazing ;)