The next seminar “Modelling of materials – theory, model reduction and efficient numerical methods” will take place on Wednesday from 9:00 in lecture room K3. The talk will be given by Christoph Allolio. Please see the details below.
Speaker: Christoph Allolio
Title: Modeling Biomembranes and Organelles: Consequences of Molecular Specificity
Abstract: The continuum description of lipid membranes via the Helfrich functional and its extensions is widely employed in the modeling of membranes at the mesoscopic scale. A major problem in the application of this theory to membrane remodeling by proteins and other adsorbates is the local modification of membrane shape, lipid composition and elastic properties by adsorbates, such as proteins. I show how material properties can be extracted from molecular simulations and how this facilitates the modeling of membrane fusion and the formation of membrane pores. I present specifically developed software tools, extracted parameters and their application to problems relevant in biology.