Large-scale simulation of droplet interface bilayers with functional protein channels
Narayana Aluru, University of Texas at Austin
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Narayana Aluru, Ravi Bhadauria, Mohammad Heiranian, Payam Dibaeinia, Alireza Moradzadeh, Nabil Ramlawi, Sikandar Mashayak, Mohammad Hossein Motevaselian, Subhadeep DeWe propose to explore the possibility of using a network of droplet interface lipid bilayers for sensing and detecting external electromechanical stimuli. The network of bilayer droplets can be functionalized by inserting different protein channels with unique functionalities. The stability of these biological droplets, which is a function of size and arrangement of the droplets, is of crucial importance in the fabrication of bio-inspired devices. We also propose to investigate the possibility of using synthetic membranes in droplet systems. The biological lipid membranes are known to be unstable under strong external electrical and mechanical excitations. Thus, replacing lipids with more durable polymeric membranes can lead to more stable networks of droplets. To study these biological and synthetic droplet systems (involving up to 1,500,000 coarse grained beads), extensive molecular simulations need to be performed. Therefore, the Blue Waters machine is needed to carry out these expensive computations and to obtain fundamental insights into the operation of droplet interface bilayers.
