Guowei Wei : Multiscale multiphysics and multidomain models for biomolecules
A major feature of biological sciences in the 21st Century is their transition from phenomenological and descriptive disciplines to quantitative and predictive ones. However, the emergence of complexity in self-organizing biological systems poses fabulous challenges to their quantitative description because of the excessively high dimensionality. A crucial question is how to reduce the number of degrees of freedom, while preserving the fundamental physics in complex biological systems. We discuss a multiscale multiphysics and multidomain paradigm for biomolecular systems. We describe macromolecular system, such as protein, DNA, ion channel, membrane, molecular motors etc., by a number of approaches, including macroscopic electrostatics and elasticity and/or microscopic molecular mechanics and quantum mechanics; while treating the aqueous environment as a dielectric continuum or electrolytic fluids. We use differential geometry theory of surfaces to couple various microscopic and macroscopic domains on an equal footing. Based on the variational principle, we derive the coupled Poisson-Boltzmann, Nernst-Planck, Kohn-Sham, Laplace-Beltrami, Newton, elasticity and/or Navier-Stokes equations for the structure, function, dynamics and transport of protein, protein-ligand binding and ion-channel systems.
- Category: Mathematical Biology
- Duration: 01:14:49
- Date: October 3, 2014 at 11:55 AM
- Views: 106
- Tags: seminar, Mathematical Biology Seminar
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