Cytoskeletal Cocktails: Reconstituting life with a taste of its mechanics

Cells are the fundamental unit of life. All living matter is made of cells: from the small systems imperceptible to our eye, like bacteria or archaea; to bigger systems, like plants or magnificent trees, fungi, and animals - including ourselves: the humans. All these systems vary in size yet they are all alive. And the common element of these systems is that they are all composed of cells. Cells are therefore fundamental, but also very complex systems. One may say, broadly, that cells are a cocktail of subsystems that, in combination and in the right balance, can become this basic unit of life. Understanding cells, and their diverse mechanisms, would therefore imply that, eventually, curious scientists (like the author herself ) may eventually be able to (better) understand life.
From a physics perspective, cells are fascinating because they constantly endure mechanical stresses and strains that challenge their survival, yet they also actively deform themselves. Our own cells exhibit remarkable deformability in response to external forces such as blood flow or muscle contraction. They also actively alter their own shape. During wound healing, cells in the skin for instance move as coherent cell sheets to heal wounds and renew tissue. And upon cellular division and differentiation, cells experience considerable shape transformations and therefore endure big deformations. Cell deformability is also an important factor in many diseases. During cancer metastasis, tumor cells for instance squeeze themselves through tissues and vessel and lymph node walls. All in all: cells are often pushed to deform, yet they somehow manage to endure those changes. So we may ask ourselves: How do they do this? To address this question, we can take a closer look at the units that forma cell....