Dresden 2026 – scientific programme
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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik
CPP 18: Active Matter III (joint session BP/CPP/DY)
CPP 18.11: Talk
Tuesday, March 10, 2026, 12:15–12:30, BAR/SCHÖ
Spatial organisation of the cell's metabolic power plant via phase separation — •Kathrin S. Laxhuber1,2 and Frank Jülicher1,2 — 1Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany — 2Max Planck School Matter to Life
Cell metabolism is the power plant that fuels the active processes essential to life. Recent experimental results show that glycolytic enzymes, central to sugar metabolism, phase-separate to form foci under energetic stress and can localise to sites of demand. To understand this phenomenon, we build and study a minimal theoretical model. We show that droplet formation can act as a metabolic switch that enables the system to maintain energetic homeostasis at higher output power. Notably, the metabolic droplets that emerge from this switch can self-organise to colocalise with demand. We discuss the non-equilibrium features and spatial energetic profiles in this system.
Keywords: thermodynamics; emulsion; reaction-diffusion; metabolism; condensate