#5 How to manage wild droplets

Living things function far from thermodynamic equilibrium, making understanding the underlying physics a challenge. To respond to the environment, organisms require complex matter transport mechanisms. Therefore, they cannot be understood only through simple liquids, but must incorporate some type of internal structure. Liquid crystals are an example of liquids with structure, in which microscopic units align with their neighbors, as happens in bacterial colonies and other biological systems. Active nematic droplets exhibit cell-like behaviors, including self-propulsion in random directions and shape change. We propose to study how these active drops move in contact with solid obstacles, through simulations. In particular, we want to understand whether with anisotropic obstacles we can direct the movement of the drops. This study may suggest ways to separate cells of different types as happens in cancer cell traps.