Cells, as the basic units of life, are intriguing, nicely organized machines that comprise a lot of internal structure and complex processes. Because these processes often take place at length and time scales that make them inaccessible to direct experimental observation, we use computer simulations to investigate them. To do so we zoom in onto the molecular level, since molecules are the building blocks of all cellular substructures as well as the actors in all cellular signalling and chemical reactions. Our dream is to simulate a complete cell at this molecular level. Since modern computers still lack sufficient computational power, for now we focus on parts of the cell, like lipid membranes, DNA, proteins, and protein assemblies.
Current research projects include:
* molecular dynamics simulations of phospholipid membranes, proteins and DNA, as well as the modeling of supramolecular (co)polymerizations and nanoparticles using Monte Carlo techniques.