About

Jay Tang is a Professor of Physics and Engineering at Brown University. His research interests are not explicitly detailed on the provided page, but he is associated with the School of Engineering and the Department of Physics at Brown University. He is involved in activities related to research centers and institutes, and has been recognized with awards such as the Hazeltine Innovation Awards. His contact information includes an email at Jay_Tang@brown.edu and a phone number 401-863-2292. Further specifics about his research focus, background, or key contributions are not provided in the given text.

Research topics

• Chemistry
• Materials science
• Biophysics
• Biology
• Physics

Selected publications

• Learning from bacterial locomotion in complex media for robotic design and medical devices

  Biophysics Reviews · 2026-05-06

  articleSenior author

  The ability of bacteria to navigate complex media underlies infection, biofilm formation, and immune evasion. Research on bacterial locomotion informs the engineering of targeted micro-robotic systems, inspiring a new generation of drug delivery vehicles. Although the hydrodynamics of bacterial swimming has been well-studied in Newtonian fluids, the real-world biological environment, such as mucus layers, polymeric gels, and extracellular matrices, exhibits non-Newtonian properties (shear thinning, viscoelasticity, yield stress, etc.) that profoundly reshape bacterial locomotion. There are at least three key questions that complicate the study of bacterial locomotion in complex media. First, how do confined geometry and viscoelastic environments affect the propulsion strategies of bacteria? Second, beyond passive rheological influences, how does bacterial activity remodel their surroundings through interfacial physics, including but not limited to capillary flows, Marangoni-like instabilities, and surface buckling? Third, beyond single-cell dynamics, how do pairwise interactions and large-scale collective movement produce emergent structures, such as branched swarms, rotating clusters, metastable jams, that reflect a delicate balance of propulsion, fluid memory, and confinement? This review first examines the operation mechanisms of single bacterial locomotion and how they inspire the design of microrobots, including biologically inspired synthetic microrobots to replicate the function of bacteria and biologically hybrid approaches that incorporate living bacteria for cargo delivery. We also review studies on how bacteria–surface interactions facilitate the design of biomedical devices. We then review recent experimental progress on bacterial locomotion in complex media, highlighting how bacterial strategies to overcome viscoelastic drag, confinement, and mechanical heterogeneity can inform the next generation of microrobotic design. Finally, we review recent advances in computational modeling approaches, including various squirmer frameworks and flagella-based approaches to model bacteria, different types of viscoelastic fluid models, and computational algorithms. These simulations can not only account for various modes of locomotion in complex environments but also reveal emergent behaviors and design principles that are difficult to capture experimentally. Together, these efforts provide a roadmap for developing environment-aware microrobots capable of efficient propulsion and task execution in complex biological settings.

  PublisherDOI

• Su1893: SYSTEMS BIOLOGY ANALYSIS OF CYTOKINE SIGNALING IN IBD HIGHLIGHTS THE IMPORTANCE OF TYK2-DEPENDENT PATHWAYS

  Gastroenterology · 2025-05-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Mechanical strain modulates enzymatic remodeling of fibrin networks

  Polymer · 2025-07-28

  articleOpen access

  Mechanical forces are increasingly recognized as key regulators of protein structure and enzymatic activity in biological materials. Here, we investigate how mechanical strain modulates the activity of factor XIIIa-mediated crosslinking and plasmin-mediated proteolysis of fibrous networks formed by the semiflexible biopolymer fibrin. Using shear rheology, turbidity measurements, confocal imaging, and gel electrophoresis, we show that fibrin fiber networks subjected to volume-conserving shear strain during polymerization undergo significant alignment and strain stiffening. These mechanical deformations enhance the exposure of binding sites within the fibrin network, leading to increased enzymatic reactivity. Specifically, the activity of the transglutaminase Factor XIIIa is elevated in strained gels, correlating with greater covalent bond formation between adjacent fibrin subunits. Likewise, plasmin-mediated proteolysis of fibrin proceeds more rapidly in strained gels, particularly in load-bearing fibers responsible for mechanical stiffness. Our findings reveal that fibrin is a mechanoresponsive substrate whose biochemical remodeling is strongly influenced by its mechanical environment. Fibrin gels formed under shear strain exhibit an architecture of aligned fibers compared to that of randomly oriented fibers formed without strain. Fiber alignment under mechanical deformation enhances enzymatic remodeling, leading to increased rates of factor XIIIa-mediated crosslinking and plasmin-mediated fibrinolysis. • Mechanical strain during fibrin polymerization aligns fibers and induces strain stiffening. • Shear strain enhances factor XIIIa-mediated crosslinking of fibrin gel. • Plasmin-mediated fibrinolysis is accelerated in strained fibrin gels, particularly in stretched, load-bearing fibers. • Fibrin behaves as a mechanoresponsive material, linking structural mechanics to enzymatic remodeling.

  PublisherDOI

• Molecular, histological, and clinical effects of selective TYK2 inhibition with zasocitinib (TAK-279) in patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis

  Journal of Investigative Dermatology · 2025-12-11

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Tracing the U-turns: A new approach for calculating the magnetic moment of magnetotactic bacteria

  Biophysical Journal · 2025-07-15

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Bacteria can rotate while body tethered to a solid surface

  Biophysical Journal · 2025-04-18 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  The attachment of bacteria to solid surfaces has been studied primarily through the modes of pili or flagella tethering. We report on a common feature of tethering in pililess strains of three species of monotrichous bacteria-Vibrio alginolyticus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Caulobacter crescentus-namely, that they may become tethered to the surface by their cell body rather than by a flagellum. These tethered bacteria rotate in alternating directions about a pivot point located under the cell body. Using high-intensity dark-field microscopy, we observed that, in most cases, the flagellum of a tethered Vibrio alginolyticus rotates together with the cell body. We name this distinct mode of attachment body tethering. Observing hundreds of rotating bacteria tethered to the surface, we find that body tethering is a more common mode of attachment than flagellum tethering for these three strains of bacteria. Our results confirm that body tethering is a key mechanism for the surface attachment of bacteria without pili. Recognizing body tethering as a robust mode of bacterial attachment to surfaces may have broad implications in the study of bacterial adhesion and biofilm formation.

  PublisherDOI

• 188 Zasocitinib-induced modulation of tyrosine kinase 2 signaling biomarkers is associated with treatment response in patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis

  Journal of Investigative Dermatology · 2025-11-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Editorial: Celebrating 1 year of Frontiers in Soft Matter

  Frontiers in Soft Matter · 2024-02-06

  editorialOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Four prominent articles have been published in this special topic issue. The collection includes two mini reviews, one original article, and one extensive review. The first mini review is related to the recent advances in biosurfactant-based microemulsions and the second one is on surfactant-free self-assembled mesoscale structures in multicomponent mixtures comprising nanoparticles, nanodroplets, and nanobubbles. The original research article is entitled "Dual mechanical impact of β-escin on model lipid membranes''. The fourth article is an extensive review, entitled, "Applying soft matter techniques to solve challenges in cryopreservation."In the minireview on biosurfactant-based microemulsions led by Thomas Hellweg, a specialty chief editor of the journal, the team of three scientists bring to the spotlight bio-surfactants of plant and microbial origins. Microemulsion systems formed by mixing oil and water with biosurfactants, such as saponins and rhamnolipids, are hugely significant in the context of sustainability as the world moves away from the petroleum industry. In contrast to most synthetic surfactants based on petrol-chemistry, biosurfactants naturally produced by plants and microbes require mild synthesis conditions, are natively biocompatible and biodegradable, and have superb pharmacological properties. Saponins, extracted from plants, such as horse chestnuts, soapbark, and foxglove, have been widely used in food, drugs, cosmetics, and the pharmacological industry. This review briefly compares the structure and properties of saponins with synthetic surfactants. These surfactants of distinct origins are widely used as emulsifiers. The second class of biosurfactants reviewed are rhamnolipids, produced most notably by the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Soberón-Chávez et al., 2005). Fine-tuned by genetics and evolution, rhamnolipids have a strong surface activity. Specifically, the ability of rhamnolipids to reduce surface tension by a factor of two facilitates the crucial functions of swarming motility and biofilm growth, properties that are key to the infectivity of this opportunistic animal and human pathogen.The mini-review, by Marian Sedlak, provides an insightful perspective on surfactant free emulsions, which contain nano-particles, nano-droplets, or nano-bubbles. Such structures are common in multi-component mixtures with both industrial and biomedical applications. Due to the nanoscopic size and the minuteness of materials contained within bulk volumes of solvent, even the slightest amounts of impurities pose serious challenges on reliable analysis of the content composition, casting doubts on the very existence of stable nano-bubbles under the conditions previously conjectured. The authors caution that, in most cases, emulsified nanoscale particles, particularly under surfactant free conditions, are nano-particles or nanodroplets-although the transient existence of nano-bubbles may play some role. The review points to the crucial role of experimental measurements in discerning the existence and molecular composition of nano-sized structures within surfactant-free emulsions.The original research article by Moleiro et al. reports experimental findings of the interaction between β-aescin (i.e., escin), a naturally occurring biosurfactant, with the model lipid DMPC (1,2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine). The study focuses on the insertion of escin into DMPC lipid bilayers, either by transversal adsorption or longitudinal integration, and measuring the structural phase behavior and the mechanical properties of the hybrid escin/phospholipid membranes. The observed properties include soft glassy rheological behavior reminiscent of liquid-crystalline ordered phases that manifest fluidlike viscoelasticity, resembling disordered phases at physiological temperatures. The authors offer a physicochemical perspective relevant to pharmacological designs, exploiting the dual mechanical impact of escin as modulable by composition and temperature in biological membranes. As a commonly used biosurfactant in the saponins category, the detailed structure and mechanical properties characterized in this study offer context to the therapeutic efficacy of escin in treating chronic venous insufficiency (CVI), hemorrhoids, and post-operative oedema (Sirtori, 2001). Further studies are needed, however, to gain insights on what molecular mechanisms specifically account for the various medicinal benefits that have been clinically demonstrated.Cryopreservation is a century-old practice that has critical applications in biomedical technology such as assisted reproduction, stem cell therapy, blood banking, and species preservation. Only recently has the subject seen renewed interest with studies at the nexus of soft matter research. A wide range of synthetic and natural compounds are discussed, from the most widely used permeable cryoprotectants (CPAs), such as glycerol and dimethyl-sulfoxide (DMSO), to naturally produced, intracellular CPAs, such as sucrose and trehalose. Through a comprehensive discussion of these, the review addresses the need for new, permeating, less toxic CPAs. The review published in this anniversary collection focuses on the discussion of several soft matter techniques with special emphasis on those that have been traditionally practiced by a relatively small community of physical chemists who find their effort integrated into the broader soft matter field. The techniques discussed in this review include optical imaging, X-ray and neutron reflectivity spectroscopy, infra-red (IR) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, electron microscopy (EM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). In connection with these techniques, the review also describes in some detail a couple of specific methods, such as shrink-swell experiments and Langmuir trough measurements. With broadranged experimentation and unlimited human ingenuity, perhaps one day the species on earth can indeed be cryo-preserved and revitalized to cope with distant space exploration and exoplanetary travel.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Mucin Promotes Bacterial Swarming by Making the Agar Surface More Slippery

  Langmuir · 2024-12-16 · 3 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  When inoculated on the surface of soft agar containing nutrients, many species of motile bacteria can grow into a dense population and spread across the surface by a form of motility called swarming. We study the swarming behavior of Enterobacter sp. SM3, a species of bacteria that exhibits a swarm-dependent reduction in symptoms associated with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). In this report, we focus on how incorporating mucin into agar gels affects the swarming motility of SM3. We found that mucin enhances SM3′s swarm rate, defined as the rate at which bacteria cover an agar surface. We show that mucin promotes wetting of aqueous droplets by inhibiting the pinning of the contact line, which is caused by structural or chemical inhomogeneity. This effect results in a more slippery agar surface. As a macromolecular biosurfactant, mucin promotes an increase in the bacterial swarm rate on agar by masking surface inhomogeneities, thereby inhibiting contact line pinning and allowing for better spreading of an expanding bacterial swarm.

  PublisherDOI

• Run-and-tumble kinematics of <i>Enterobacter</i> Sp. SM3

  Physical review. E · 2024-06-07 · 6 citations

  articleSenior author

  The recent discovery of the peritrichous, swarm-competent bacterium Enterobacter sp. SM3 has offered a new opportunity to investigate the connection between bacterial swimming and swarming. Here, we report the run-and-tumble behavior of SM3 as planktonic swimming cells and as swarming cells diluted in liquid medium, drawing comparison between the two states. Swimming cells of SM3 run for an average of 0.77 s with a speed of approximately 30µm/s before tumbling. Tumbles last for a duration of 0.12 s on average and cause changes in direction averaging 69^{∘}. Swimming cells exposed to the common chemoattractant serine in bulk solution suppress the frequency of tumbles in the steady state, lengthening the average run duration and decreasing the average tumble angle. When exposed to aspartate, cells do not demonstrate a notable change in run-and-tumble parameters in the steady state. For swarming cells of SM3, the frequency of tumbles is reduced, with the average run duration being 50% longer on average than that of swimming cells in the same liquid medium. Additionally, the average tumble angle of swarming cells is smaller by 35%. These findings reveal that the newly identified species, SM3, performs run-and-tumble motility similar to other species of peritrichous bacteria such as E. coli, both in the swimming and swarming states. We present a simple mechanical model, which provides a physical understanding of the run-and-tumble behavior of peritrichous bacteria.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Compensatory Roles of Electrostatics and Depletion Force on the Aggregation of Filamentous Viruses and Protein Filaments

  NSF · $298k · 2004–2007

• Biomechanics of Actin Networks Regulated by Physical Mechanisms

  NSF · $306k · 2008–2012

• Motion of Uni-Flagellated Bacteria in Visco-elastic Media

  NSF · $362k · 2014–2017

• Electrophoresis of Filamentous Viruses Through Solid State Nanopores

  NSF · $330k · 2015–2019

• The role of intercellular interactions in bacterial swarming motility

  NSF · $488k · 2022–2025

Frequent coauthors

• Guanglai Li

  72 shared

• Jonathan S. Reichner

  Rhode Island Hospital

  67 shared

• Paul A. Janmey

  University of Pennsylvania

  57 shared

• Patrick W. Oakes

  Loyola University Chicago

  49 shared

• Dipan C. Patel

  Emory University

  46 shared

• Sridhar Mani

  Albert Einstein College of Medicine

  31 shared

• William G. Cioffi

  Rhode Island Hospital

  29 shared

• Hyeran Kang

  University of Central Florida

  24 shared

Education

• PhD, Physics

  Brandeis University

  1994

• BS, Physics

  Peking University

  1987

Awards & honors

• Hazeltine Innovation Awards