Physics of Biological Membranes

Patricia Bassereau is currently CNRS Directrice de Recherche (equivalent to professor) at the Institut Curie in Paris, where she also leads the group "Membranes and cellular functions". She completed her PhD in Soft Matter at the University of Montpellier, where she began her career on the structure of self-assembled surfactant-based systems. She spent one year as a visiting scientist at the IBM Almaden Center (San Jose, USA), where she focused on thin polymer films. She moved to the Institut Curie in 1993 to work on questions related to "Physics of the cell." With her group, she is developing a multidisciplinary approach, largely based on synthetic biology and biomimetic systems as well as quantitative mechanical and microscopy methods, to better understand the role of biological membranes in cellular functions. Additionally, she studies in vitro and in cellulo the mechanics and the generation of cellular protrusions. She is currently chairperson of the French Physics Society (SFP) group "Physics and living matter" and an associate editor for eLife and Molecular Biology of the Cell. She has been honored with several awards, including a Suffrage Science Award from the Royal Society, the MRC and L'Oréal, and an Emmy Noether Distinction from the European Physical Society. She is a Fellow of the Biophysical Society. Pierre Sens is Directeur de Recherche (equivalent to professor) at the CNRS and leader of the group "Physical approaches to biological problems" at the Institut Curie. He holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the University of Strasbourg, where he studied the statistical physics of soft matter, such as polymers and surfactants systems. He is above all interested in problems at the interface of physics and biology, with a special emphasis on the physics of biological membranes, which he explored during his postdoctoral studies first at the UC Santa Barbara (USA), then at the Weizmann Institute (Israel). His team at Institut Curie uses theoretical approaches based on statistical physics, non-linear dynamics and soft-matter physics to understand the organization and dynamics of living matter, particularly at the level of biological cells and cellular tissues.

Part 1. Introduction.- 1. Understanding Membranes and Vesicles: A Personal Recollection of the Last Two Decades.- 2. Advanced Concepts and Perspectives of Membrane Physics.- Part 2: Membranes by the Numbers.- 3. Membranes by the Numbers.- Part 3: Spatial Heterogeneities in Biomembranes.- 4. LIPID RAFTS - A PERSONAL ACCOUNT.- 5. Theories of Equilibrium In homogeneous Fluids.- 6. Critical lipidomics: The consequences of lipid miscibility in biological membranes.- 7. Lateral diffusion in heterogeneous cell membranes.- 8. Mechanical factors affecting the mobility of membrane proteins.- 9. Membrane domains under cellular recycling.- 10. Protein Pattern Formation.- Part 4: Biomembrane Mechanics and Consequences for their Functions.- 11. Biomembrane mechanical properties direct diverse cell functions.- 12. Spontaneous and intrinsic curvature of lipid membranes: back to the origins.- 13. Membrane-mediated interactions.- 14. Simulating protein-mediated membrane remodeling at multiple scales.- 15. Mechanosensitivity of membrane budding and tracking Lionel Foret.- 16. Common energetic and mechanical features of membrane fusion and fission machineries.- 17. Interaction of particles and pathogens with biological membranes.- 18. Adhesion of biological membranes.- 19. Spatial and mechanical aspects of signal transduction in the cell membrane.- 20. Protein-Induced morphological deformations of biomembranes.- 21. Fluctuations in active membranes.