Regensburg 2022 – scientific programme

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SYUK: Symposium United Kingdom as Guest of Honor

SYUK 1: United Kingdom as Guest of Honor I

SYUK 1.4: Invited Talk

Wednesday, September 7, 2022, 11:00–11:30, H2

Cilia and flagella: Building blocks of life and a physicist's playground — •Oliver Bäumchen — Chair of Experimental Physics V, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany

Flagella and cilia are actively beating, hair-like cellular appendages that represent universal building blocks of life. They inherit various essential functions that range from driving fluid flows in the mammalian brain and transporting mucus in the respiratory tract to realizing microbial motility and navigation through complex environments. While large-scale flows are achieved through the coordination of dense ciliary carpets, only a few isolated flagella are needed in order to propel a single-celled microorganism. These flagella displace the surrounding fluid by means of periodic motions, while precisely timed modulations of their beating enable the cell to steer towards or away from specific locations. In this presentation I will focus on the interactions of flagella with interfaces and elucidate how physical principles advance our understanding of microbial motility and emergent phenomena in microbial suspensions. Microorganisms that are equipped with photoreceptors may adapt their flagella beating and also actively switch their flagella-surface interactions in response to light cues. These skills allow photoactive microorganisms to effectively adapt to variable light conditions in their natural habitats and make flagellated microbes a fascinating playground for physicists.