Soft Matter and Biological Physics at Surfaces

我的研究计划侧重于发展对软材料和生物系统的物理性质的基本理解和预测能力，如聚合物、生物聚合物和细菌细胞。这些材料和系统的响应性和复杂性给理解其复杂行为的潜在机制带来了令人着迷的挑战，并为设计和开发这些材料的新应用提供了令人兴奋的机会。我们的工作重点是解决这样的问题：新型抗菌化合物的作用机制是什么？细菌是如何在表面上移动的？蛋白质与下表面以及与其他蛋白质的结合部位的性质是什么？对于在我的实验室中发现的多糖纳米颗粒，它们与水相互作用的性质是什么？自然生成的生物材料的结构和机械性能是什么？为了详细探讨这些问题，我们将使用各种最先进的表面敏感工具、独特的样本几何形状和简化的理论模型，这些模型在材料物理角度的背景下捕捉基本物理和潜在的机制。这项工作必然是多学科的，跨越许多学科，如物理、化学、微生物学和食品科学，而地方、国家和国际合作构成了研究计划的重要组成部分。我们希望这将导致对它们行为的潜在机制的理解，并发现新的材料和策略，以设计和应用软材料和生物材料在新的应用中。

My research program focuses on developing a fundamental understanding and predictive power for the physical properties of soft materials and biological systems, such as polymers, biopolymers and bacterial cells. The responsiveness and complexity of these materials and systems pose fascinating challenges to understand the underlying mechanisms of their complex behavior, and offer exciting opportunities to design and exploit these materials for new applications. Our work focuses on addressing questions such as: What are the mechanisms of action of novel antimicrobial compounds? How do bacteria move on surfaces? What is the nature of the binding sites of proteins with the underlying surface and with other proteins? For the polysaccharide nanoparticles discovered in my laboratory, what is the nature of their interaction with water? What are the structure and mechanical properties of naturally occurring biomaterials? To probe these questions in detail, we will use a wide range of state-of-the-art, surface-sensitive tools, unique sample geometries, and simplified, theoretical models that capture the essential physics and underlying mechanisms, within the context of a materials physics perspective. This work is necessarily multidisciplinary, spanning many disciplines such as physics, chemistry, microbiology, and food science, and local, national and international collaborations form an essential part of the research program. We hope that this will lead to an understanding of the underlying mechanisms for their behavior, and the discovery of new materials and strategies for designing and applying soft and biological materials in new applications.