New: Martini cocktails featuring ionic liquids

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Getting bored of the traditional Martini ingredients ? Then try spicing up your cocktail with ionic liquids ! Check out this paper for inspiring recipes, some of which feature fish oil .....

Vazquez-Salazar et al., Martini Coarse-Grained Models of Imidazolium-Based Ionic Liquids: From Nanostructural Organization to Liquid-Liquid Extraction. Green Chemistry, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1039/D0GC01823F
 

Advanced Memterials

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Our TS2CG tool has already inspired some (read: Matthieu Chavent) to create a whole series of new artefacts, opening an entire new field of science. Advanced Memterials ? Membrengineering ? Who comes up with a catchy name ?

We can already envision the next steps, e.g., simulating fusion of two bunnies, or what would you get putting a Martini glass and a bunny together  in a simulation box ? And what would it take to stabilize these highly-curved objects with the right type of lipids and curvature stabilizing proteins ?

Of course the real challenge is now with the experimentalists to make these lipid based nano devices in the lab ....

Simulation of an entire organelle

Simulation of the membranes of an entire mitochondrion ! See how more than 5 million lipids are organized in this amazingly complex organelle, obtained with our new backmapping tool TS2CG.

Pezeshkian, Konig, Wassenaar, Marrink, Nature Commun. 11, 2296 (2020). TS2CG2.jpg

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Hybrid membranes

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On (rare) occasions Martini membranes are not good enough, and you might want to simulate with atomistic resolution. But then your system size explodes and you don't have this Anton machine on your desk. What next? Liu Yang figured a way to combine the best of both worlds:

Y. Liu et al., Dual Resolution Membrane Simulations Using Virtual Sites, JPC-B, 2020. doi:10.1021/acs.jpcb.0c01842

Escape from the endosome

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 Now in the theaters !!!

Read all about the amazing story of these poor little Martini genes, seemingly gagged and trapped inside an endosome waiting for degradation ... will they manage to escape ?


Bruininks et al., A molecular view on the escape of lipoplexed DNA from the endosome, eLife, online.

Martini at school

It may not sound such a good idea, bringing Martini to the schools. But check out this paper, explaining at high school level the molecular basis for some cool fat-featuring experiments, with the help of Martini simulations. Ideal also for online education !

Fats’ Love–Hate Relationships: A Molecular Dynamics Simulation and Hands-On Experiment Outreach Activity to Introduce the Amphiphilic Nature and Biological Functions of Lipids to Young Students and the General Public. A.S. Tascini, S. Wang, J.M. Seddon, F. Bresme, R. Chen. J. Chem. Educ. (2020). Online.