Title: Biophysics of lipid-protein membranes

Speaker: Dr. Tripta Bhatia, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Berlin

Abstract: The majority of cellular processes are related to physical and chemical properties of the complex lipid-protein membranes. We focus on disentangling and characterizing biomembrane processes by development of experimental in-vitro systems and methodologies. With recent advances in lipid-protein vesicle techniques we have facilitated new understanding of lipid domain (raft) formation in membranes, lateral membrane protein organization, the interplay between lipid membranes and active membrane proteins and the formation of tubules and spontaneous tension in asymmetric membranes. Our approach allows for systematic building up of complexity of synthetic membranes to mimic and understand specific biological systems or simplify biological membranes to make them tractable for biophysical analysis. In particular it makes it possible to isolate and analyze phenomena related to vesicular trafficking, signaling, electrophysiology and metabolism in simple biomimicking membrane systems.