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SUMMARY:Faceting of multicomponent elastic vesicles - Dr Rastko Sknepnek (
 University of Dundee)
DTSTART:20140521T131500Z
DTEND:20140521T141500Z
UID:TALK52019@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Aron Cohen
DESCRIPTION:Membranes are abundantly present in nature. They are an essent
 ial part of most biological systems with the cell wall\, the envelope of t
 he cell nucleus\, and the inner and outer mitochondrial membranes being ju
 st a few common examples. Most biological membranes are liquid and\, thus\
 , have smooth\, round shapes. In other words\, stress produced by the form
 ation of a sharp edge is relieved by reordering the molecules within the m
 embrane to round off the edge. However\, there are examples of vesicles wi
 th solid membrane walls. For such membranes molecules are locked in place 
 and there is no direct mechanism to smooth out sharp edges. As a result\, 
 the vesicles can facet. Due to an intricate interplay between geometry and
  elasticity\, if faceted\, solid vesicles take a shape of an icosahedron\,
  or do they? In this talk\, we show that a multicomponent solid shell made
  of two elastically distinct components can facet into a large variety of 
 polyhedral shapes. We analyse a simple discrete model for solid membranes 
 and explore in detail possible shape patterns of such multicomponent elast
 ic shells with and without line tension between the two components.\n
LOCATION:Department of Chemistry\, Cambridge\, Unilever lecture theatre
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