Federico Rossi
University of Siena, Italy
Guest Speaker
Federico Rossi is associate professor of physical-chemistry in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Physical Sciences at the University of Siena (Italy). He was Marie Curie fellow at the Department of Chemistry at Brandeis University (USA) and assistant professor at the University of Salerno (Italy). His current research interests include the study of chemical systems with complex kinetics (oscillating, excitable, etc.) coupled with transport phenomena, the analysis of networks of oscillating droplets and their applications to systems chemistry.
Keynote presentation: Self-Division and Shape Changes of Giant Vesicles Induced by an Internal Chemical Trigger - an Interplay between Osmosis and pH Change
Session "Replication" Wednesday, 2 Dec, 17:00 - 17:30 CET
Abstract: Shape transformation and self-division of phospholipid/fatty acid giant hybrid vesicles can be induced by an internal chemical stimulus (pH change) when coupled with an osmotic shock. In particular, an autocatalytic enzymatic reaction set (urea-urease system), confined in the lumen of 1-palmitoyl-2- oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (POPC)/oleic acid (HOA) vesicles, can force the budding or the division of the hosting vesicle, when properly fed by a trans-membrane substrate infusion. The division mechanism can be explained in terms of the area-difference-elasticity (ADE) theory.