Recently, there has been a surge of activity to elucidate the behavior of highly charged soft matter and Coulomb fluids in general. Such systems are ubiquitous, especially in biological matter where the length scale and the strength of the interaction between highly charged biomolecules are governed by strong electrostatic effects. Several interest

This handbook provides a unique overview of lipid membrane fundamentals and applications. The fascinating world of lipids that harbor and govern so many biological functionalities are discussed within the context of membrane structures, interactions, and shape evolution. Beyond the fundamentals in lipid science, this handbook focuses on how scientists are building bioinspired biomimetic systems for applications in medicine, cosmetics, and nanotechnology. Key Features: Includes experimental and theoretical overviews on the role of lipids, with or without associated biomolecules, as structural components imparting distinct membrane shapes and intermembrane interactions Covers the mechanisms of lipid-membrane curvature, by peptide and protein binding, and the roles of signalling lipids and the cytoskeleton in plasma membrane shape evolution Covers advanced X-ray and force measurement techniques Discusses applications in biomedicine, cosmetics, and nanotechnology, including lipid vectors in nucleic acid, drug delivery in dermal applications, and lipid-based sensors and artificial biointerfaces Covers artificial membranes from block copolymers, synthetic copolypeptides, and recombinant proteins Includes an exciting section that explores the role of lipids in the origin of life in hydrothermal conditions This book is a highly informative companion for professionals in biophysics, biochemistry, physical chemistry, and material and pharmaceutical sciences and bioengineering.

Recently, there has been a surge of activity to elucidate the behavior of highly charged soft matter and Coulomb fluids in general. Such systems are ubiquitous, especially in biological matter where the length scale and the strength of the interaction between highly charged biomolecules are governed by strong electrostatic effects. Several interesting limits have been discovered in the parameter space of highly charged many-particle Coulomb matter where analytical progress is possible and completely novel and unexpected results have been obtained. One of the challenges in highly charged matter is to correctly describe systems with finite coupling strength in the transition regime between weak and strong couplings. After studying the fluctuations of both, several theories have been developed that describe this experimentally highly relevant regime. At the same time, computer simulation algorithms and computing power have advanced to the level where all-ion simulations, including many-body and polarization effects, are possible; the new theories thus can be subjected to numerical confirmation. Another important question is the effect of the structural disorder on electrostatic interactions. It has recently been demonstrated, both theoretically and experimentally, that charge disorder can impose long-range interaction between charged or even uncharged surfaces. These interactions might become very significant in biological processes. Filling a void in the literature, this volume cross-pollinates different theoretical and simulation approaches with new experiments and ties together the low temperature, high coupling constant, and disorder parameters in a unified description of the electrostatic interactions, which largely determine the stability and conformations of most important biological macromolecules. With striking graphical illustrations, the book presents a unified view of the current advances in the field of Coulomb (bio)colloidal systems, building on previous literature that summarized the field over 20 years ago. Leading scientists in the field offer a detailed introduction to different modern methods in statistical physics of Coulomb systems. They detail various approaches to elucidate the behavior of strongly charged soft matter. They also provide experimental and theoretical descriptions of disorder effects in Coulomb systems, which have not been discussed in any other book.

The Advances in Chemical Physics series provides the chemical physics field with a forum for critical, authoritative evaluations of advances in every area of the discipline. This volume explores the following topics: Thermodynamic Perturbation Theory for Associating Molecules Path Integrals and Effective Potentials in the Study of Monatomic Fluids at Equilibrium Sponteneous Symmetry Breaking in Matter Induced by Degeneracies and Pseudogeneracies Mean-Field Electrostatics Beyond the Point-Charge Description First Passage Processes in Cellular Biology Theoretical Modeling of Vibrational Spectra and Proton Tunneling in Hydroen-Bonded Systems

This brief book introduces the Poisson-Boltzmann equation in three chapters that build upon one another, offering a systematic entry to advanced students and researchers. Chapter one formulates the equation and develops the linearized version of Debye-Hückel theory as well as exact solutions to the nonlinear equation in simple geometries and generalizations to higher-order equations. Chapter two introduces the statistical physics approach to the Poisson-Boltzmann equation. It allows the treatment of fluctuation effects, treated in the loop expansion, and in a variational approach. First applications are treated in detail: the problem of the surface tension under the addition of salt, a classic problem discussed by Onsager and Samaras in the 1930s, which is developed in modern terms within the loop expansion, and the adsorption of a charged polymer on a like-charged surface within the variational approach. Chapter three finally discusses the extension of Poisson-Boltzmann theory to explicit solvent. This is done in two ways: on the phenomenological level of nonlocal electrostatics and with a statistical physics model that treats the solvent molecules as molecular dipoles. This model is then treated in the mean-field approximation and with the variational method introduced in Chapter two, rounding up the development of the mathematical approaches of Poisson-Boltzmann theory. After studying this book, a graduate student will be able to access the research literature on the Poisson-Boltzmann equation with a solid background.

Soft condensed matter physics, which emerged as a distinct branch of physics in the 1990s, studies complex fluids: liquids in which structures with length scale between the molecular and the macroscopic exist. Polymers, liquid crystals, surfactant solutions, and colloids fall into this category. Physicists deal with properties of soft matter system

"The chapters in this book survey the progress in simulating biomolecular dynamics.... The images conjured up by this work are not yet universally loved, but are beginning to bring new insights into the study of biological structure and function. The future will decide whether this scientific movement can bring forth its Picasso or Modigliani." –from the Foreword by Peter G. Wolynes, Bullard-Welch Foundation Professor of Science, Rice University This book highlights the state-of-art in coarse-grained modeling of biomolecules, covering both fundamentals as well as various cutting edge applications. Coarse-graining of biomolecules is an area of rapid advances, with numerous new force fields having appeared recently and significant progress made in developing a systematic theory of coarse-graining. The contents start with first fundamental principles based on physics, then survey specific state-of-art coarse-grained force fields of proteins and nucleic acids, and provide examples of exciting biological problems that are at large scale, and hence, only amenable to coarse-grained modeling. Introduces coarse-grained models of proteins and nucleic acids. Showcases applications such as genome packaging in nuclei and understanding ribosome dynamics Gives the physical foundations of coarse-graining Demonstrates use of models for large-scale assemblies in modern studies Garegin A. Papoian is the first Monroe Martin Associate Professor with appointments in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Institute for Physical Science and Technology at the University of Maryland.