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25–30 Sept 2023
Protea Hotel King George
Africa/Johannesburg timezone

Neutrons and Model Membranes

27 Sept 2023, 12:00
25m
Regency Room (Protea Hotel King George)

Regency Room

Protea Hotel King George

Invited Talk Physics Research Biophysics

Speaker

Giovanna Fragneto (ESS)

Description

The understanding of the function of cellular membranes requires the study of their structure and dynamics. Cellular membranes are complex assemblies of lipids and proteins. In particular the lipid scaffold, is composed by a large variety of lipid species and levels of chain unsaturation, often difficult to synthesise chemically. Because of this complexity, model membrane systems from simple lipid bilayers are often used for fundamental studies and those can profit from probes able to access different scales of size and time like thermal neutrons and synchrotron radiation. Since the pioneering neutron scattering work in the seventies on cell membrane structure, developments driven by constantly improving neutron instrumentation, coupled with development of measurement and analysis methods, have involved both the optimisation of samples towards more biologically relevant model systems including the use of more and more complex lipid mixtures up to natural extracts.

Abstract Category Biophysics

Primary author

Presentation materials