Soft Matter Studies
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Group interests in soft matter stem from previous work on membrane biophysics. Typically the relationship between enzyme activity and membrane lipid composition was explored in model experimental systems. In recent work we have looked at the activity of enzymes in lyotropic liquid crystal phases and have used small angle x-ray diffraction to estimate the contributions to stored elastic energy of individual lipids using a novel method, which we have recently published (1). Other work in this area has looked at the effects of counterions on lyotropic liquid crystal phase typology (2) and the effects of fatty aldehydes on membrane curvature (3).

 

(1) Richard J. Gillams, Tommy Nylander, Tomás S. Plivelic, Marcus K. Dymond, and George S. Attard (2014). Formation of Inverse Topology Lyotropic Phases in Dioleoylphosphatidylcholine/Oleic Acid and
Dioleoylphosphatidylethanolamine/Oleic Acid Binary Mixtures. Langmuir 2014, 30, 3337−3344.

(2) Dymond, M.K., Gillams, R.J., Parker, D.J., Burrell, J., Labrador, A., Nylander, T. and Attard, G.S., 2016. Lipid spontaneous curvatures estimated from temperature-dependent changes in inverse hexagonal phase lattice parameters: Effects of metal cations. Langmuir, 32(39), pp.10083-10092.

(3) Burrell, J., Dymond, M.K., Gillams, R.J., Parker, D.J., Langley, G.J., Labrador, A., Nylander, T. and Attard, G.S., 2017. Using curvature power to map the domain of inverse micellar cubic phases: the case of aliphatic aldehydes in 1, 2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine. Langmuir, 33(44), pp.12804-12813.