School of Physics Soft Condensed Matter and Biophysics Series: Dr. Martin Forstner, Syracuse University 

Lipid based membranes are an essential building block of all cellular life, separating the inside of a cell from the outside and compartmentalizing the cell interior. Once thought of as passive and featureless environments for membrane proteins, a new picture of bio-membranes has begun to emerge that paints them as structured, complex fluids whose proper dynamic organization plays an important role in cellular life. Our studies combine optical microscopy, spectroscopy biochemical techniques to uncover some of the physical and chemical mechanism that lead to dynamic organization of the lipid membrane interfaces and its constituents. Particular attention is thereby given to the interactions of calcium ions and phosphoinositides- an important class of signaling lipids-as well as regulation of the spectrin based membrane skeleton in mechanotransduction. In addition, possible implications of structured, fluid membrane interfaces for biomimetic systems in bio- and nanotechnology are explored.