Title: Elastic and Dynamic Response of Membranes Across Scales

Speaker: Ed Lyman, University of Delaware

Abstract: Cell membranes are quasi-2D soft materials, about 5 nm thick but with hundreds of square microns of surface area. They are a bilayer structure, assembled from amphiphilic molecules (lipids) and proteins. The function of membranes imposes challenging design constraints: impermeable yet fluid, mechanically robust yet deformable. Across the tree of life, cells meet these challenges by synthesizing a diverse array of lipids, whose chemistry and interactions determine the key continuum properties, like stiffness against bending and the viscosity which controls diffusion and encounter of membrane bound signaling partners. In this talk I will present our group's work using simulations to connect lipid chemistry and membrane properties, focusing on two applications. The first project considers the membranes of a family of marine invertebrates called ctenophores, which synthesize a specialized lipid chemistry to maintain membrane deformability at high pressure. The second project focuses on how lipid chemistry is used to control the viscosity of the membrane, and the challenges that come with trying to measure the viscosity of soft, thin, not-quite two dimensional fluids.

Zoom: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/95131921396

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