"Critical Miscibility and Red Blood Cell Lipids"

Sarah L. Keller

Chemistry Department, University of Washington, Seattle

Abstract

Lipids are the soap-like molecules that form cell membranes and are a favorite topic in biological physics. When lipids are deposited in monolayers at an air-water interface, immiscible liquid phases can form, both in simple mixtures and in more complicated, biological mixtures. Experiments will be described in which lipids were extracted from human red blood cells and used to make monolayers approximating the inner and outer leaflets of the red blood cell membrane. These monolayers exhibit miscibility critical points at an area per molecule comparable to that in the membrane of a red blood cell.

Elizabeth K. Mann