Biological assemblies and materials have exciting properties such as self-organization into specific patterns, performing work over long distances, and sensing and responding to the environment. These desirable properties are possible because biomaterials are non-equilibrium, using energy to perform these activities. Here, we are interested in the ability of cytoskeletal networks of microtubules or composite networks with actin to remember or forget their organization after damage by laser ablation. We seek to determine if the initial network pattern, the ablation pattern, and the activity of active kinesin crosslinkers and passive crosslinkers are important to dictate if the cytoskeletal network structure recovers (memory) or changes (forgetting).
Jennifer L. Ross (Sun,) studied this question.