ESR 9 - Nanomotor-induced motion in synthetic cytoskeletons

Understanding how cells work is of great interest for the development of drugs. Studying biological cells is very difficult, because of their complex environment and plethora of interactions. Using well characterised artificial cells simplifies the understanding of complex interactions that take place in biological cells. The results obtained of the study of artificial cells can be translated up to certain degree towards biological cells. The cells I will be working on are called coacervates. The study of coacervate as artificial cell is of special interest in contrast to other artificial cells like polymersomes and liposomes. The coacervates ensembles the crowded environment of biological cells more closely thereby resulting in more comparable results in regard to biological cells. I want to take a precise look on the motility (the ability of an organism to move independently) and the ability of cells to deform in a specific way. There are several approaches to mimic these tasks. Herein we want to attach enzymes (e.g catalase, urease) to the membrane of the coacervates and use them to induce movement of the coacervate as a whole. Observing and quantifying these effects will be a challenging but very rewarding task.