Invited seminars – 2024 –
Starting 2024, LCMCP invites renowned experts to share their knowledge in the field of Soft Matter, a new inter-Team Transverse Axis.
Lectures will occur approximately once a month and are open (in person and online) to anyone interested. The next scheduled seminars are
LCMCP invites renowned experts to share their knowledge in the field of soft matter. Lectures will occur approximately once a month and are open to anyone interested. The next scheduled seminars are
May 2024
Prof. Atul Parikh
Biomedical Engineering, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
Institute for Digital Molecular Analytics & Science, NTU, Singapore
Mixing Water, Tranducing Energy, Shaping Membranes
24/05/2024 – 11h
Salle Levissalle
Tour 42-43 Sous Sol -1
Campus Pierre et Marie Curie
Sorbonne Université
4, Place Jussieu Paris 5
Online Link
Abstract
The physical properties of membrane interfaces, quasi-two dimensional, bilayer lipid membranes, which together with membrane proteins delimit cellular boundaries, are now largely well-understood at thermodynamic equilibrium. But generic descriptions of far-from-equilibrium behaviors of membranes – which allow living cells to sense, respond, and adapt to environmental perturbations while displaying extraordinary stability – are conspicuously lacking. Here, non-equilibrium activities of membrane-proteins, underlying cytoskeleton, and osmotic activities of water bathing the membrane, all couple with membrane’s physical, chemical, and mechanical degrees of freedom producing long-lived out-of-equilibrium structures with emergent reconfigurable morphologies and cooperative behaviors.
Drawing from recent experiments in our labs employing simple models for the cellular chassis (i.e., giant vesicles composed of amphiphilic lipids and polymers), this talk considers how the osmotic activity of water is transduced across cell-like compartments. It highlights how water activity and accompanying dissipation of osmotic energy couples with the compartmental boundary, mechanically remodeling the membrane shape and spatially reorganizing membrane and the aqueous-phase components through well-orchestrated cooperative dynamics. Comparing these processes as elemental events in the homeostatic working of a living cell, these findings support the idea that water is not a mere solvent for life – a blank canvas on which biomolecules become animated – but an active medium that directs the molecular-level organization and mesoscale dynamics in complex, subtle, yet essential ways.
June 2024
Dr. Seunghyun Sim, Ass. Prof.
University of California, Irvine, CA, USA
Molecular Assembly of Living Materials
24/06/2024 – 10h
UFR de Chimie, Salle 101
Tour 32-42, Campus Pierre et Marie Curie
Sorbonne Université
4, Place Jussieu Paris 5
Online Link
Dr. Thibaut Divout
ENS, Lyon
Advanced rheology and micro-rheology
24/06/2024 – 11h
UFR de Chimie, Salle 101
Tour 32-42, Campus Pierre et Marie Curie
Sorbonne Université
4, Place Jussieu Paris 5
Online Link
Past seminars
March 2024
Dr. Marc-Antoine Fardin
Université Paris-Cité, Paris
Scaling laws & dimensional analysis in Soft Matter
06/03/2024 – 11h
Video of the presentation
Paper 1, Paper 2
April 2024
Prof. Cosima Stubenrauch
University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany
Surfactant-Based Lyotropic Liquid Crystal Gels – The Interplay between Anisotropic Order & Gel Formation
03/04/2024 – 14h
UFR de Chimie, salle 101
Tour 32-42, Campus Pierre et Marie Curie
Sorbonne Université
4, Place Jussieu Paris 5