With more than 85 people attending the recent Lipid Bilayers at ESS conference, Professor Tommy Nylander concludes that the event was a great success. It was organised as part of a series of conferences gathering researchers globally who work on biological membranes, biophysics and modelling.
The conference was also the very last event organised by the Dynamics theme.
He reflects that the event has expanded in scope since it was first organised by ISIS, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Oxfordshire, UK, in 2009.
– What started as a neutron focused event has now grown into a broader approach where we highlight both modelling and complementary techniques. I think this is great since it opens up the network, and the research on biological membranes to more people, says Tommy Nylander, professor at Physical Chemistry at Lund University, and LINXS fellow.
Broad programme on science, tools and methods
The conference included sessions on biological membranes and functions, membrane structure and self-assembly, membrane dynamics, structural analysis of membranes and lateral and non-planar membrane structures. It also highlighted talks on the role of membranes in health and disease, membrane protein interactions, and application of membranes. Methods and tools were also discussed, such as the need to combine modelling with experiments, how to make full use of the advantage of neutron techniques , by deuteration of lipids, and ways to reduce the background in different sample environments.
In three years, the network will meet again. Tommy Nylander hopes to see an even broader programme at that event. Because more research is absolutely crucial to progress fundamental understanding on how structural biological membranes function.
Research gaps need to addressed
Some of the research gaps he would like to see addressed in the coming years, covers areas such as structure/ function relationships, including how to match model systems to real membranes, how to tackle more scares but crucial lipids, the role of curved membranes and responses to physiological environments, for example enzyme action on biological membrane, and interaction with other components.
