Biomaterials as Soft Matter

Explain why lipids will self-assemble into a bilayer structure. In a nonpolar solvent such as chloroform, do you expect to see bilayer formation How will different solvents affect the assembly  

Polyunsaturated lipids have long, flexible alkyl chains, often with several unsaturated bonds. How will this chain structure affect the average space filled by the molecule compared with a saturated lipid What potential effects may result from adding polyunsaturated lipids to the lipid bilayer if the bilayer leaflets can have different lipid compositions  

Estimate the Bjerrum length for the actin filament. How does this length scale compare to the Debye screening length in a 20 itlM MgClj solution. 

The persistence length of the actin filament has been experimentally measured to be approximately 10 pm. From this value, estimate the bending energy kf, of the filament. How does this compare to other biological filaments such as DNA or microtubules  

X-ray scattering data are collected for a lamellar lipid phase in aqueous solution, and Bragg peaks are detected at = 1.04 and 2.08 nm-f 

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