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Research on human skin anatomy reveals its complex multi-scale, multi-phase nature, with up to 70% of its composition being bounded and free water. Fluid movement plays a key role in the skin's mechanical and biological responses,…
Diffusion in cell membranes is not just simple two-dimensional Brownian motion, but typically depends on the timescale of the observation. The physical origins of this anomalous sub-diffusion are unresolved, and model systems capable of…
Combining extensive molecular dynamics simulations of lipid bilayer systems of varying chemical composition with single-trajectory analyses we systematically elucidate the stochastic nature of the lipid motion. We observe subdiffusion over…
We address the problem of antimicrobial peptides that create pores in lipid bilayers, focusing on voltage-temperature dependence of pore opening. Two novel experiments (voltage-clamp with alamethicin as an emblematic representative of these…
The cell membrane is inherently asymmetric and heterogeneous in its composition, a feature that is crucial for its function. Using atomistic molecular dynamics simulations, the physical properties of a 3-component asymmetric mixed lipid…
A theory of a lateral stress relaxation in a fluid bilayer membrane under a step-like pressure pulse is proposed. It is shown theoretically that transfer of lipid molecules into a strained region may lead to a substantial decrease of the…
Drying of fluids undergoing sol-gel transition in porous media, a process crucial for the consolidation of damaged porous structures in cultural heritage, often leads to skin formation at the surface. This phenomenon significantly hinders…
We consider the hydrodynamics of lipid bilayers containing transmembrane proteins of arbitrary shape. This biologically-motivated problem is relevant to the cell membrane, whose fluctuating dynamics play a key role in phenomena ranging from…
Maintenance of epidermal thickness is critical to the barrier function of the skin. Decreased tissue thickness, specifically in the stratum corneum (the outermost layer of the tissue), causes discomfort and inflammation, and is related to…
The Fluid Mosaic Model by Singer & Nicolson proposes that biological membranes consist of a fluid lipid layer into which integral proteins are embedded. The lipid membrane acts as a two-dimensional liquid in which the proteins can diffuse…
A molecular model is proposed of a bilayer consisting of fully saturated DPPC and mono unsaturated DOPC. The model not only encompasses the constant density within the hydrophobic core of the bilayer, but also the tendency of chain segments…
We employ 100 ns molecular dynamics simulations to study the influence of cholesterol on structural and dynamic properties of dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) bilayers in the fluid phase. The effects of the cholesterol content on the…
The response kinetics of liquid crystalline phosphatidylcholine bilayer stacks to rapid, IR-laser induced temperature jumps has been studied by millisecond time-resolved x-ray diffraction. The system reacts on the fast temperature change by…
A cell membrane can be simply regarded as composite material consisting of lipid bilayer, membrane cytoskeleton beneath lipid bilayer, and proteins embedded in lipid bilayer and linked with membrane cytoskeleton if one only concerns its…
Gaining access to the cell interior is fundamental for many applications, such as electrical recording, drug and biomolecular delivery. A very promising technique consists of culturing cells on nano/micro pillars. The tight adhesion and…
Monte Carlo simulations of crystal nuclei coexisting with the fluid phase in thermal equilibrium in finite volumes are presented and analyzed, for fluid densities from dense melts to the vapor. Generalizing the lever-rule for two-phase…
We experimentally study the statistics of the transition path time taken by a submicron bead to successfully traverse an energy barrier created by two optical tweezers in two prototypical viscoelastic fluids, namely, aqueous polymer and…
We devise a soft, solvent-free, coarse-grained model for lipid bilayer membranes. The non-bonded interactions take the form of a weighted-density functional which allows us to describe the thermodynamics of self-assembly and packing effects…
A biomimetic model of cell-cell communication was developed to probe the passive molecular transport across ion channels inserted in synthetic lipid bilayers formed between contacting droplets arranged in a linear array. Diffusion of a…
A hydrophobic constriction site can act as an efficient barrier to ion and water permeation if its diameter is less than the diameter of an ion's first hydration shell. This hydrophobic gating mechanism is thought to operate in a number of…