# A New Method for Biomembrane Simulations

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO · 2020 · $323,806

## Abstract

Project Summary
 Membrane targeting and remodeling is intimately associated with many critical cellular phenomena,
including endocytosis, infection, immune response, organelle formation, cell division, signaling, and
movement. These processes are innately multiscale, as they span from the molecular to the nanoscopic to the
mesoscopic time and length scales. For instance, the molecular-level interactions between collections of
proteins and the lipid bilayer can have a profound effect on the large scale membrane morphology. The main
scientific premise of this project is that it is critical to study, in a coupled fashion across multiple scales, the
propagation of local molecular interactions upward in scale to the collective and emergent behavior at the
mesoscopic level. This project therefore involves the continued development and application of novel
multiscale computational methods that are ideally suited to investigate the collective interactions of proteins
with membranes.
 There are two main components of this research: (1) the development of new multiscale simulation
methods that can be utilized to study increasingly complex aspects of large scale protein-mediated membrane
processes, and (2) the elaboration of the mechanisms by which key proteins target and remodel biological
membranes. Three classes of protein-membrane systems will be studied: peripheral membrane proteins (the
BAR domain family and how they remodel membranes), transmembrane proteins (influenza M2 protein and
how it interacts with the membrane to generate membrane curvature in the course of viral budding), and
signaling proteins (PKC, PDK1, and AKT1) to help elucidate the events that take place in the course of the
membrane targeting and association by these proteins. The overarching long term goal of this research is to
continue to develop and apply a powerful and systematic multiscale computational approach in the study of
realistic protein-mediated membrane phenomena.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9842631
- **Project number:** 5R01GM063796-17
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
- **Principal Investigator:** Gregory A. Voth
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $323,806
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2001-06-01 → 2022-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9842631

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9842631, A New Method for Biomembrane Simulations (5R01GM063796-17). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9842631. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*