报告人：张若垚 博士

时  间：3月13日（周三）上午10:00

地  点：工学院力学楼 434室

主持人：毛晟 研究员

报告内容摘要：

Many mesoscopic membrane-less organelles, also called biomolecular condensates, have shown significant biological functions in cells. Some condensates rich in proteins and nucleic acids form via liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), and can undergo liquid-to-solid phase transition when aging, which is related to numerous neurodegenerative diseases. In the studies of chemically reactive macromolecular mixtures, a thermodynamic model is formulated to describe complex formation, LLPS and aging via gelation concurrently. Phase behaviors of quaternary mixtures are characterized by constructing ternary phase diagrams. A thermodynamically consistent kinetic framework is also constructed to study how reaction, gelation and Brownian motion of condensates affect the coarsening and morphology of such mixtures. We find that physical cross-links in biomolecular condensates slow down the coarsening rate, while Brownian motion promotes the coarsening of gel-like domains above certain volume fraction threshold, leading to percolated structures.

报告人简介:

Dr. Ruoyao Zhang received his Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Materials Science from Princeton University in 2024, and his B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He will work as a postdoctoral scientist in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. His research interests include theoretical and computational biophysics across multiple length and time scales, modeling non-equilibrium phenomena in materials and cells, and high-performance computing, etc.

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