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Story of the Cover
Chlamylipo, a Chlamydomonas-in-liposome microswimmer: Self-propelled swimming and associated lipid membrane flow
(Shunsuke Shiomi, Koichiro Akiyama, Hiromasa Shiraiwa, Sota Hamaguchi, Daiki Matsunaga, Tomoyuki Kaneko, Masahito Hayashi, Biophysics and Physicobiology 23, e230019 (2026), DOI: 10.2142/biophysico.bppb-v23.0019)
At the heart of this image lies "Chlamylipo" — a bio-hybrid micro-swimmer in which the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii is encapsulated within a giant liposome. Sealed inside a closed lipid bilayer, the cell beats its flagella against the membrane, transmitting propulsive force across the bilayer through periodic membrane deformation. The swimmer thus moves forward and steers toward light by phototaxis. The surrounding panels reveal its hidden mechanics: rapid membrane deformations at tens of hertz driven by flagellar beating, coupled flows of the inner and outer solutions across the membrane, and in-plane membrane flow on the liposome visualized through lateral phase separation of lipid domains — together illustrating how internal hydrodynamic power drives a microscopic container in the world of low Reynolds number.