Dresden 2026 – scientific programme

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SYGF: Guest Country Symposium France: Soft, Active and Alive: Emergent Properties in Living Matter

SYGF 1: Guest Country Symposium France: Soft, Active and Alive: Emergent Properties in Living Matter (SYGF)

SYGF 1.1: Invited Talk

Wednesday, March 11, 2026, 15:00–15:30, HSZ/AUDI

Liquid crystal geometries in type I collagen-based tissues — •Nadine Nassif — Sorbonne Université/CNRS, UMR7574, Paris, France

Many biological tissues exhibit hierarchical fibrillar architectures that resemble the geometry of liquid crystalline phases. Such ordering occurs in matrices composed of collagen, chitin, cellulose, or DNA, and governs essential structure/property relationships. Bone and cornea are two emblematic examples: bone exhibits a twisted-plywood architecture, whereas the cornea displays a highly organized orthogonal plywood arrangement that ensures transparency and mechanical integrity. In bone, collagen confinement creates supersaturation of proteins and ions, with major consequences for mineral formation. Our research aims to reproduce the collagen-based building blocks underlying these tissues to better understand morphogenesis and develop advanced biomaterials. Type I collagen shows lyotropic behavior, forming successive ordered phases and retaining liquid-crystal organization during fibrillogenesis. Using a bioinspired continuous-injection process mimicking cellular secretion, we scale up collagen assemblies from droplets to 3D bulk materials. Their biomimetic mineralization produces collagen/apatite composites with strong structural and functional similarity to bone, as demonstrated by in vitro and in vivo investigations. Overall, our results demonstrate the importance of physico-chemical processes in biomineralization, which are usually discussed from a biological perspective.

Keywords: self-assembly; collagen; confinement; properties; biomaterials