| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2010 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Computational Thermodynamics and Kinetics
|
| Presentation Title |
Evolving Microstructures in Lipid Bilayers: Novel Insights from Materials Science |
| Author(s) |
Mikko Haataja |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Mikko Haataja |
| Abstract Scope |
Lipid bilayer membranes are semi-permeable, two-dimensional fluid-like sheets which control the exchange of matter and information between living cells and their surroundings. Far from being a featureless mixture of lipids and proteins, compositional lipid microdomains within these membranes are believed to facilitate many important cellular processes. The physical mechanisms which control the sizes and lifetimes of these spatially-extended domains ("membrane microstructure") are rather poorly understood at the moment. In this talk I will argue that a combination of thermodynamics of immiscible systems (driving phase separation) and incorporation of active cellular lipid transport mechanisms to and from the membrane impeding phase separation (analogous to irradiation effects in immiscible binary alloys) provides a compelling physical picture of the spatio-temporal microstructure of the membrane. In more general terms, I will argue that tools from materials science can provide important and novel insight into complex "microstructural evolution" phenomena in biophysics. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Definite: A CD-only volume |