Emanuel Schneck: "Investigating Biomembrane Models at Fluid Interfaces—from Bacteria Surfaces to Glycolipid Domains to RNA delivery"

Thursday 20 Jul 2023, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Ljubljana

A/1-106 - Seminarska soba fizike (F5) (Jamova)

Biological membranes based on lipid bilayers are major components of all living organisms, but lipid layers are also used in many biomedical applications. We use biomembrane models in the form of lipid mono- and bilayers at water/air and water/oil interfaces in order to investigate various biological and biotechnologically relevant phenomena involving lipid layers. These experimental models are comprehensively characterized with numerous surface-sensitive techniques, notably x-ray and neutron scattering/reflectometry and x-ray fluorescence, as well as molecular dynamics simulations. The talk will cover examples from our recent activities, including the conformation of wild-type bacterial lipopolysaccharide layers [1], the formation of glycolipid-enriched ordered lipid domains [2], the characteristics of lipid bilayers adsorbed to functionalized fluid interfaces [3], and the pH-dependent charge and structural properties of transfection lipid layers for RNA delivery.

[1] S. Micciulla, Y. Gerelli, E. Schneck; Biophysical Journal, 2019, 116, 1259.
[2] T. Mukhina, G. Brezesinski, C. Shen, E. Schneck; J. Colloid Interf. Sci., 2022, 615, 786.
[3] J. Pusterla, E. Scoppola, C. Appel, T. Mukhina, C. Shen, G. Brezesinski, E. Schneck; Nanoscale 2022, 14, 15048.