We've made our group's first pre-print submission to bioRxiv. We posted our paper 3D Cell Cultures Amplify Diffusion Signals. This paper models the amplification of diffusion signals that occurs across the boundary of an organoid immersed in liquid. With a combination of theory and experiments, we verify the amplification factor as a function of diffusion coefficients inside and outside the organoid. The main result is that, on a very short timescale, organoids act like sponges and can make measurable changes to nutrient concentrations in the surrounding environment. This provides useful insight for lab-on-chip systems and other applications that have dense collections of cells.

This paper is an output of the SIMBA project. It is first-authored by our group member Hamidreza Arjmandi and co-authored with our SIMBA project collaborators at AstraZeneca Sweden (Kajsa Kanebratt, Liisa Vilen, and Peter Gennemark).

Our paper "Biophysical Model for Signal-Embedded Droplet Soaking into 2D Cell Culture" has been posted to arXiv. This paper presents our group's first experimental work with bacteria where we develop a model for liquid droplets soaking into an agar plate. We derive a channel response to describe the molecule dynamics within the agar and the molecules that get absorbed by bacteria growing on top of the agar. We use a basic experiment to estimate the droplet soaking parameters and use particle simulations for the diffusion and absorption processes. This work will be the foundation for us understanding how signals can propagate within and between surface bacterial communities. The paper was co-authored with Christophe Corre (University of Warwick School of Life Sciences and Department of Chemistry).

We're very pleased to share that Dr Hamidreza Arjmandi has been promoted to Assistant Professor (Research Focused). Hamidreza has been a valuable member of our group for the last 18 months and this promotion is a great recognition of his many research contributions, plus his commitment to service and teaching.

Our paper "Diffusive Molecular Communication with a Spheroidal Receiver for Organ-on-Chip Systems" was accepted for presentation at IEEE ICC this May in Rome, Italy. This paper will be our group's first publication focused on organ-on-chip systems. We model an organoid of cells as a receiver and derive the channel response from a nearby point transmitter. We approximate the porous organoid receiver as a sphere with a lower diffusion coefficient and show its impact on the received signal. This paper was co-authored with Hamidreza Arjmandi and Mitra Rezaei from our group, in addition to Mohamad Zoofaghari (Yazd University, Iran) and our SIMBA project collaborators at AstraZeneca Sweden (Kajsa Kanebratt, Liisa Vilen, David Janzen, and Peter Gennemark).

We're pleased to announce that we will be hosting the 10th ACM International Conference on Nanoscale Computing and Communication (ACM NanoCom) here at the University of Warwick. The conference will be held from 20-22 September, 2023. Adam Noel is serving as General Chair along with Andrew Eckford (York University, Canada). Other local organisers include Hamidreza Arjmandi as Local Organization Chair, Matthew Higgins as Sponsorship Chair, and Yanahan Paramalingam as Social Media Chair.

ACM NanoCom 2023 is endorsed by the Technical Committee on Molecular, Biological, and Multi-Scale Communications of the IEEE Communications Society.

The Call for Papers is now available. Full details can be found here. The initial deadline for Regular Papers is 9 April 2023.

We're pleased to welcome Dr Ibrahim Isik who joins us as a Visiting Research Fellow to work on fluid dynamics and signal transport for bacteria. Ibrahim has a B.Sc. in Electrical Electronics Engineering from the University of Gaziantep, Turkey, and both an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Electrical Electronics Engineering from Inonu University, Turkey. His Ph.D. research was on the impact of amyloid beta on molecular communication.

We're pleased to welcome Mitra Rezaei who joins us with a Chancellor's International Scholarship to do her PhD on communication between cell organoids. Mitra has a B.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering from Sahand University of Technology and an M.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering from Tarbiat Modares University.

Our paper "Membrane Fusion-Based Transmitter Design for Static and Diffusive Mobile Molecular Communication Systems" (alternative arXiv link) was accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Communications. This paper considers a novel molecular communication system where the transmitter is a membrane-bound sphere and vesicles bind to and fuse with the sphere in order to release molecules into the propagation environment. Such a system is more reflective of cellular signalling than the point- or volume-based transmitters that are usually modelled. We derive the resulting molecule release probability and the corresponding impact on what is observed at an absorbing receiver. Our simulation results show how the hitting probability at the receiver is impacted by slow vesicle diffusion or a low membrane fusion probability. The paper was co-authored with Xinyu Huang (Australian National University), Yuting Fang (Melbourne, Australia), and Nan Yang (Australian National University).

We're pleased to welcome the new research members that have joined the BioPhysComm Lab this year.

Dr Hamidreza Arjmandi joins us as a Research Fellow to work on the SIMBA Project (Signal Propagation and Information in Microscale Biological Applications). Dr Arjmandi was previously an Assistant Professor at Yazd University, Iran, and an ERCIM Postdoctoral Fellow at Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He completed his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology (Tehran, Iran) in 2016.

We're also pleased to welcome 2 new PhD students: Yanahan Paramalingam and Mahir Taher. Yanahan is co-supervised by Freya Harrison and Tara Schiller, and is studying signalling within biofilms. Mahir joins us as a member of the Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research PhD Program. He is co-supervised by Anne Straube and is studying molecular transport in neurons.