School of Physics Soft Condensed Matter & Physics of Living Systems Seminar: Prof. Michael Lerner, Earlham College

The diffusion of lipids and proteins within membranes are crucial to a variety of biological processes. With proper physical understanding, the diffusion coefficient gives information about the size, oligomerization, and local environment. It also serves as a standard test of simulation parameters.

We will discuss the statistics involved in calculating diffusion coefficients from both simulation and single-molecule experiments. Getting this right also gives us a nice way to quantify correlated motions in both simulations and experiments. Meanwhile, simulations are typically performed in periodic boundary conditions. We find that these conditions can cause typical simulations to underestimate experiment by a factor of 3 or more.