Why is the coexistence of hydro-phobic and -philic patches prevalent in Nature?

by Francesco Stellacci (Department of Materials Science and > > Engineering, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland and MIT Cambridge (MA) USA)

Tuesday 2 Nov 2010, 16:00 → 18:00 Europe/Rome

Aula Conversi (Dipartimento di Fisica - Ed. G. Marconi)

Observing Nature, it becomes apparent that most biological actors, like folded proteins, enzymes, proteic complexes, all show a similarity on their surfaces: hydrophobic and hydrophilic group coexist at a length scale of a few nanometer. This is a molecular length-scale, that is molecules are commensurate with this length scale. The question whether this coexistence places a (or any) role in determining some of the properties that these objects have come natural. Yet it has seldom been posed, and has no answer. In this talk we will use the tools of materials science and chemistry to show that model compounds that have this coexistance can be made and characterized and that can be used to address this question. The main finding is that this coexistance places an important role in determining the wetting of this materials as well as their interaction with cell membranes.