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Mixtures of lipids and cholesterol are commonly used as model systems for studying the formation of liquid-ordered ($L_o$) domains in heterogeneous biological membranes. The simplest model system exhibiting coexistence between $L_o$ domains…
The folding of a polypeptide is an example of the cooperative effects of the amino-acid residues. Of recent interest is how a secondary structure, such as a helix, spontaneously forms during the collapse of a peptide from an initial…
We study a model lipid bilayer composed of a mixture of two incompatible lipid types which have a natural tendency to segregate in the absence of membrane fluctuations. The membrane is mechanically characterized by a local bending rigidity…
Relatively short peptides, such as toxins and antimicrobial-peptides, are known to insert themselves into cell membranes. On the basis of simple bead-spring models for the membrane lipids, the peptide, and water, detailed processes of the…
We study the interaction between incompressible viscous fluids and multilayered elastic structures in a 3D/2D/3D framework, where a 3D fluid interacts with a 2D thin elastic layer, coupled to a 3D thick elastic solid. The system is driven…
We report extensive Monte Carlo and event-driven molecular dynamics simulations of the fluid and liquid phase of a primitive model for silica recently introduced by Ford, Auerbach and Monson [J. Chem. Phys. 17, 8415 (2004)]. We evaluate the…
The mutual drag in strongly interacting two-component superfluids in optical lattices is discussed. Two competing drag mechanisms are the vacancy-assisted motion and proximity to the quasi-molecular state, in which an integer number $q$ of…
When a binary liquid is confined by a strongly repulsive wall, the local density is depleted near the wall and an interface similar to that between the liquid and its vapor is formed. This analogy suggests that the composition of the binary…
Three problems in the statistical mechanics of models for an assembly of molecular motors interacting with cytoskeletal filaments are reviewed. First, a description of the hydrodynamical behaviour of density-density correlations in…
Biological membranes are self-assembled complex fluid interfaces that host proteins, molecular motors and other macromolecules essential for cellular function. These membranes have a distinct in-plane fluid response with a surface viscosity…
By mapping the interactions of colloidal particles onto the problem of minimizing areas, the physics of foams can be used to understand the phase diagrams of both charged and fuzzy colloids. We extend this analogy to study the elastic…
Hydrophobic interactions provide driving forces for protein folding, membrane formation, and oil-water separation. Motivated by information theory, the poorly understood nonpolar solute interactions in water are investigated. A simple…
The adhesion of biological membranes is controlled by various types of receptor and ligand molecules. In this letter, we present a statistical-mechanical model for membranes that interact via receptor/ligand bonds of two different lengths.…
While all the information required for the folding of a protein is contained in its amino acid sequence, one has not yet learned how to extract this information to predict the three--dimensional, biologically active, native conformation of…
The protein-polysaccharide combinations that lead to electrostatic complex and coacervates formation are the object of extensive research using both layer-by-layer and mixed emulsion approaches. The protein-polysaccharide conjugates…
Anion exchange membranes are used in alkaline fuel cells and offer a promising alternative to the more expensive proton exchange membrane fuel cells. However, hydroxide ion conductivity in anion exchange membranes is low, and the quest for…
The adhesive behaviour of biological attachment structures such as spider web anchorages is usually studied using single or multiple peeling models involving "tapes", i.e. one-dimensional contacts elements. This is an oversimplification for…
Lubricated contacts in soft materials are important in various engineering systems and natural settings. Three major lubrication regimes are boundary (BL), mixed (ML), and elasto-hydrodynamic (EHL) lubrication, where the contact region is…
We review theoretical results for the adhesion-induced phase behavior of biomembranes. The focus is on models in which the membranes are represented as discretized elastic sheets with embedded adhesion molecules. We present several…
Motivated by recent experimental work on multicomponent lipid membranes supported by colloidal scaffolds, we report an exhaustive theoretical investigation of the equilibrium configurations of binary mixtures on curved substrates. Starting…