Bioinspired systems

Bioinspired systems

People

Jens-Uwe Sommer , Ron Dockhorn , Marco Werner , Hauke Rabbel

Introduction

Polymers are most important components of living matter. Thus, concepts of polymer physics can be applied to understand processes in biology. On the other hand synthetic polymer systems are in contact with living matter in biophysical or medical applications. In most cases the natural environment is a aqueous solution. Charge effects caused by dissociation of monomer units into charged monomers and counter-ions play an important role for water-soluble systems. On the other hand, self-organized structures emerging from the interplay of hydrophilic and hydrophobic effects are of interest. We investigate specific biological processes using theoretical concepts and simulation methods of polymer physics. We are also interested in understanding the properties of polymer materials which can be used as functional environments for biological systems such as extracellular matrices.

Topics

Heparin-PEG networks

Self-assembled bilayer membranes

Highlights

  • J.-U. Sommer, R. Dockhorn, P. Welzel, U. Freudenberg and C. Werner
    Swelling Equilibrium of a Binary Polymer Gel
    Macromolecules 44 (2011) 981–986


  • R. Dockhorn and J.-U. Sommer
    A Model for Segregation of Chromatin after Replication: Segregation of Identical Flexible Chains in Solution
    Biophysical Journal 100 (2011) 2539-2547


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    Bioinspired systems
    Bioinspired systems
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