Research in Biophysics
Our interest in Biological systems spans different issues, like the behavior of biomembranes under different external perturbations, the role of the spatio-temporal dynamics of membrane platforms in cell signaling, the characterization of complex cellular metabolic networks, and the collective behavior of cells. Below you can find detailed information on our current research interests in Biophysics.Complex Networks in Systems Biology
Network biology covers a wide range of scales from molecular interactions in the cell to intercellular communication and the connections between organisms and species. With the unprecedented wealth of experimental and empirical data available, one of the many challenges is to produce coherent models to mimic observed biological responses.
Molecular Dynamics of Biomembranes
We study the lipid organization in biomembranes by means of Molecular Dynamics. Our simulations cover different aspects of membrane organization in equilibrium and nonequilibrium scenarios. The GROMACS Molecular Dynamics package is used, and both atomistic and coarse-grained molecular descriptions are applied in our studies.
Signaling Processes in Biology
Transmembrane cellular signaling pathways are responsible for linking external stimuli and internal cellular actions. We work with minimal motif models for transmembrane cell signaling. The models assume signaling events taking place in spatially distributed nanoclusters regulated by a birth/death dynamics.
Modeling of Biological Systems
We address questions of the Biology realm by using tools and approaches from Statistical Mechanics. Our topics of interest cover quite different scales in time and space. “All” problems that involve the collective behavior of cells (and/or genes and/or organisms...) capture our attention.