Achievement

In a recently published article in Nature, an interdisciplinary team of researchers at Brandeis headed by Zvonimir Dogic, and consisting of experimental, theoretical, and computational physicists as well as biologists, has demonstrated a new way of controlling interfacial tension using a molecular property called chirality, or lack of mirror symmetry. The study was performed on a model system of two-dimensional colloidal membranes composed of the rod-like bacteriophage virus fd, which are about one micrometer in length and 7 nanometers in diameter. The electrostatically repulsive virus particles are condensed into membranes through the depletion mechanism by adding non-adsorbing polymer to a virus suspension. Because the fd rods are chiral, they tend to twist by a small angle with respect to neighboring rods. However, the geometry of the membrane prevents twisting in the structure’s interior; only along the perimeter can the rods twist. See http://blogs.brandeis.edu/science/page/7/