Biological matter is usually held together by forces (van der Waals or hydrophobic) that are much weaker than usual covalent forces. Therefore, it usually falls in the category of Soft Condensed Matter.
I have been interested in the behavior of soft matter for quite a long time. I have mainly studied amphiphilic membranes, two-dimensional structures made of molecules formed of a hydrophilic and a hydrophobic moiety. More recently, I have considered some intriguing physical aspects of DNA, the prototypical nucleic acid.
Since the forces holding soft condensed matter together are weaker than usual forces, the role of fluctuations is especially important. Thus, these systems are also interesting from a fundamental point of view in Statistical Mechanics. I shall here review some of my recent work in the Statistical Mechanics of Soft Condensed Matter, namely:
