{"id":4875,"date":"2018-01-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-01T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpdev.hmc.edu\/physics\/2018\/01\/01\/finding-the-aurightau-balance-for-asymmetric-lipid-bilayers\/"},"modified":"2018-01-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-01-01T08:00:00","slug":"finding-the-aurightau-balance-for-asymmetric-lipid-bilayers","status":"publish","type":"physics_clinic","link":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/physics\/research\/clinic\/projects\/finding-the-aurightau-balance-for-asymmetric-lipid-bilayers\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding the &#8220;Right&#8221; Balance for Asymmetric Lipid Bilayers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span id=\"clinic-sponsor\">Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory<\/span><br><span id=\"clinic-year\">2018\u201319<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Cellular membranes are the barrier protecting the inner cell components from the&nbsp;outside environment. They are composed of proteins and lipids that form lipid&nbsp;bilayers of varying complexity. One approach to understanding the behavior of&nbsp;lipid bilayers uses molecular dynamics simulations of realistic size and&nbsp;complexity. Realistic bilayers are asymmetric, having different concentrations&nbsp;of various lipids in the two leaflets. This asymmetry affects the stability,&nbsp;sometimes approximated as \u201cflatness,\u201d of the simulated bilayer. Many&nbsp;properties have been used to judge whether simulated bilayers are stable and&nbsp;realistic, but a quantitative definition incorporating multiple properties has&nbsp;not been proposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the Lawrence Livermore National Lab Clinic project, we will create and analyze lipid&nbsp;membrane simulations to provide a deeper understanding of how asymmetries of&nbsp;varying complexity within the lipid bilayer leaflets affect membrane&nbsp;properties. These properties may include area per lipid, area compressibility,&nbsp;order parameters, and bilayer thickness, among others. From these properties, we&nbsp;will attempt to create a metric of stability for asymmetric bilayers. We will&nbsp;also develop a streamlined process for simulating and analyzing stable bilayer&nbsp;membranes. The final product will be used to inform and benefit future research&nbsp;in membrane biophysics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"clinic-advisor\"><strong>Advisor(s):<\/strong> Peter N. Saeta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p id=\"clinic-team\"><strong>Team:<\/strong> Madison Rae Blumer &#8217;19, Sophia (Sophie) Laurice Harris &#8217;19, Mengzhe Li &#8217;20, Luis Angel Martinez &#8217;19, and Michael Untereiner &#8217;19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-4875","physics_clinic","type-physics_clinic","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/physics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/physics_clinic\/4875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/physics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/physics_clinic"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/physics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/physics_clinic"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/physics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hmc.edu\/physics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}