Theoretical physics, theory in soft matter, computer simulations
Contact
Objectives
The challenge of this project is to rationalize the inter effective interactions between amphiphilic copolymers and self-organized lipid bilayer membranes using coarse-grained Monte Carlo methods:
- Analyze the effect of many copolymers interacting with a fluctuating membrane
- Finding copolymer sequences which match particular tasks such as increasing permeation or disruption
- Simulating membranes with internal stiffness to understand the role of phases in membrane-polymer-interactions
Tasks and methodology
Implementing simulation methods (BFM) for membrane-polymer systems based on existing framework and using GPU-code. Using evolutionary methods to search for optimal copolymer sequences. Developing analytical, mean field and scaling methods for the different localization and adsorption scenarios of copolymers at membranes. Implementing effective interactions based on molecular dynamics simulations
Starting date
October 2014
