Preface

Faraday Discussion 161 on Lipids & Membrane Biophysics was held at Burlington House, London from 11^th–13^th September 2012. The meeting considered recent developments in the study of biomembrane structure, ordering and dynamics, with particular emphasis on the roles of lipids in these phenomena. As well as discussing new experimental and theoretical findings and novel methodologies, the meeting focused on exploring the relevance of concepts from amphiphile self-assembly and soft matter physics to understanding bilayer structure, elasticity and dynamics. One of the key challenges in biophysics and chemical biology is gaining an understanding of the underlying physico-chemical basis of the highly complex structure and properties of biomembranes. It used to be thought that the lipid component played a mainly passive role, simply acting as a self-assembled bilayer matrix within which the active protein components functioned. However, it has now become clear that there is an intimate two-way interplay between the lipid and the protein components in determining membrane structure, organization and dynamics and that lipids play many active roles in biological function. Concepts, such as lateral segregation and domain formation, lateral pressure, curvature and curvature elasticity, have attracted enormous interest in recent years, although their validity when applied to real biomembranes remains unclear or even obscure. As the focus of the Discussion was on lipids, many key aspects of biomembranes were neglected or dealt with very briefly, including the role of proteins in controlling domain formation, in shaping membranes and in effecting fusion and budding, the effects of bilayer lateral pressure and/or thickness mismatch on membrane protein conformation and activity, and membrane protein biogenesis, assembly, folding and transport.

The idea for organising a Faraday Discussion on Lipids & Membrane Biophysics was suggested to me by Calum Drummond in 2008 during a visit to London. We then invited Colin Bain, Derek Marsh, Ole Mouritsen and Paul O’Shea to join us on the Scientific Committee. Looking back to some previous related Faraday Discussions, three landmark meetings stand out: a) The 1933 meeting at the Royal Institution, London on Liquid Crystals and Anisotropic Melts, organised mainly by J. D. Bernal and hosted by Sir William Henry Bragg. There was a paper on lyotropic mesomorphism by A. S. C. Lawrence and one on paracrystallinity by F. Rinne (presented posthumously), where early structural data on phospholipids was shown. b) Faraday Discussion 25 on Configurations and Interactions of Macromolecules and Liquid Crystals was held in Leeds in 1958, with papers on the elasticity of liquid crystals by Sir Charles Frank and on the structures of the lyotropic phases of surfactants by Vittorio Luzzati. c) Faraday Discussion 81 on Lipid Vesicles and Membranes was held in Loughborough in 1986 and a wide range of physical properties of lipid membranes were discussed there.

Faraday Discussion 161 opened with the Introductory Lecture by Prof. John F. Nagle, who stressed how valuable the discussion format is for hearing candid points of view on controversial areas. His lecture focused on two main topics: the bilayer bending modulus and the use of simulations and it set the scene for the four sessions that followed: novel structural, spectroscopic and imaging techniques (Schwille, Conboy, Baoukina, Honigmann and Connell), lipid self-assembly, structure, ordering and dynamics (Wennerström, Parikh, Uline, Blume, Schröder-Turk and Orsi), curvature, shape changes, lipid–protein coupling and fusion (Lipowsky, Boxer, Marrink, Deserno, Gawrisch and Vattulainen) and membrane interactions and applications (Andersen, Attard, Gröbner, Needham, Pérez-Gil and Winter). There was a lively discussion in all of the sessions. The Concluding Remarks Lecture was delivered by Prof. Evan Evans, who gave a stimulating summing up.

The turnout of 168 participants at Faraday Discussion 161 was particularly high, emphasizing the current strong interest in the area of lipids and membrane biophysics. The geographical distribution of the delegates was very broad, with 46 from the UK, 80 from Europe, 28 from North/South America, 10 from Asia and 4 from Australasia. 91 posters were presented and the RSC Skinner Prize was split between Mohammad Rahimi, UPC, Barcelona, and Thomas Portet, University of Washington. The British Biophysical Society Poster Prize was awarded to Deborah Machado Andrade, MPI for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen.

The conference photograph (Fig. 1) was taken at Burlington House in front of the Royal Academy and to the side of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Fig. 1 Participants at Faraday Discussion 161 on Lipids & Membrane Biophysics, held at Burlington House, London, 11–13 September 2012.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to the RSC staff involved with the very successful organising and running of the Discussion: Zoey Peace, Fiona Nalden, Susan Weatherby and Mindy Dulai, Sarah Latham and Rachel Thompson from RSC Events and Lois Bradnam and Jessica Cocker for their hard work in collating and processing the discussion points. I would also like to thank all contributors of papers, questions, replies and comments, who had to keep to tight deadlines. We are very grateful for sponsorship from CSIRO, Australia, and from Avanti Polar Lipids, Inc.

 

John M. Seddon (Co-Chair, Editor)

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