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 have a 2-year postdoctoral position for a Research Fellow to work on the EPSRC project "Signal Propagation and Information in Microscale Biological Applications (SIMBA). This project includes collaboration with Dr Christophe Corre in the School of Life Sciences and with AstraZeneca. Applications close 22 June 2021 and can be made here.

Our paper "Membrane Fusion-Based Transmitter Design for Static and Diffusive Mobile Molecular Communication Systems" has been posted to arXiv. 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 have successfully received funding for the project "Signal Propagation and Information in Microscale Biological Applications (SIMBA)," which has been granted by the EPSRC as a New Investigator Award at a value of £313k (£392k FEC). This will be a 30-month project starting in Spring 2021 and it will establish a communications engineering framework for describing and controlling cell signalling, behaviour, and decision-making. The framework will be applied to interdisciplinary case studies of bacteria signalling and organ-on-a-chip systems. The bacteria case study will model the emergence of antimicrobial resistance in an environment with different mutants of the S. coelicolor bacterium. The organ-on-a-chip case study will model metabolic regulation between liver and pancreatic cells, as observed in an experimental microfluidic platform. The project team includes Adam Noel as PI, Christophe Corre (Department of Chemistry and School of Life Sciences) as Co-I, and AstraZeneca as an industrial partner. We will also be hiring a postdoctoral research assistant for a 2-year term.

Our paper "A Survey of Molecular Communication in Cell Biology: Establishing a New Hierarchy for Interdisciplinary Applications" (open access DOI) was accepted for publication in IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials. This paper bridges the gap between life sciences and communications engineering to promote the application of molecular communication as a methodology for applications that require communication between cells and other microscale devices. To do so, we propose a novel communication hierarchy for molecular communication signalling in cell biology. We map biological phenomena, research contributions, and open problems to the hierarchy. We also apply the hierarchy to case studies on quorum sensing, neuronal signalling, and communication via DNA. This paper was co-authored with Apostolos Almpanis from our group, in addition to Dadi Bi and Yansha Deng (King's College London), and Robert Schober (FAU, Germany).

Our paper "Characterization of Cooperators in Quorum Sensing with 2D Molecular Signal Analysis" (link to arXiv version; here is the DOI) was accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Communications. This paper models quorum sensing by a community of bacteria. Each bacterium makes a single decision whether to cooperate based on the quorum sensing signal observed due to the aggregate bacterial population. We apply stochastic geometry to derive the quorum sensing channel statistics and the distribution of the number of bacteria that choose to cooperate. Derivations are verified with particle-based simulations. The paper was co-authored with Yuting Fang (Melbourne, Australia), Andrew W. Eckford (York, Canada), Nan Yang (Australian National University), and Jing Guo (Beijing Institute of Technology). An early version was presented at IEEE GLOBECOM 2019 under the title "Expected Density of Cooperative Bacteria in a 2D Quorum Sensing Based Molecular Communication System".

Our paper "A Survey of Molecular Communication in Cell Biology: Establishing a New Hierarchy for Interdisciplinary Applications" has been posted to arXiv. This survey provides a hierarchical framework to model communication-based behaviour in cells. We use the framework to review instances of communication in cell biological systems and identify opportunities to control behaviour and design new systems. We also apply the hierarchy to case studies of quorum sensing, neuronal signalling, and communication via DNA. In particular, the hierarchy provides a roadmap to understand how cell behaviour is informed and constrained by the propagation of molecular signals and the physical mechanisms for detecting those signals. The survey was co-authored with Dadi Bi (King's College London), Apostolos Almpanis (Warwick), Yansha Deng (King's College London), and Robert Schober (FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany).

The paper "Molecular Information Delivery in Porous Media" (link to arXiv version; here is the DOI) was accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Molecular, Biological, and Multi-Scale Communications. We perform the first study of using a porous material as a diffusive communication channel. With the help of statistical breakthrough curves, we compare the characteristics of communication in a porous channel with that of the more familiar free space diffusion channel. One key difference is that increasing the Peclet number in a porous channel can increase the size of the tail of the channel impulse response, whereas this would decrease the size of the channel impulse response tail in the free space case. This paper was co-authored with Yuting Fang (ANU, Australia), Weisi Guo (Warwick), Matteo Icardi (Nottingham), and Nan Yang (ANU, Australia).

The paper "Diffusive Molecular Communication in a Biological Spherical Environment with Partially Absorbing Boundary" (link to arXiv version; here is the DOI) was accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Communications. We derive the diffusive channel response for a transmitter and receiver that are arbitrarily placed within a partially absorbing spherical shell. This paper was co-authored with Hamidreza Arjmandi and Mohammad Zoofaghari (both at Yazd University, Iran).

The paper "A Novel A Priori Simulation Algorithm for Absorbing Receivers in Diffusion-Based Molecular Communication Systems" (link to arXiv version; here is the DOI) was accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on NanoBioscience. We propose a Monte Carlo type approach to efficiently simulate surface absorption in microscopic particle-based simulations. The algorithm is shown to be very accurate when simulating with large time steps. This paper was co-authored with Yiran Wang and Nan Yang (both at ANU, Australia). An implementation of this algorithm is included in the AcCoRD simulator (Actor-based Communication via Reaction-Diffusion).