| Lipid membranes are of general interest to the scientific community due to their roles as cellular membranes, and because of their interesting material properties, such as tendencies to self-assemble into two- and three-dimensional structures. Further, there is interest in using lipid membranes as a self-assembling template or substrate for other materials, such as membrane proteins. The work presented here explores the physical-chemical interactions in and around artificial lipid membranes. In the first two chapters, lipid membranes are investigated as a form of programmable matter that responds to environmental changes. These responses manifest as two- and three-dimensional reorganization. In the subsequent chapters, the lipids of an extremophilic archaeon are examined in synthetic configurations to 1) identify how ensembles of lipids originating from organisms of different domains on the tree of life may behave in similar ways, and 2) to examine how the lipids of a desiccation-tolerant organism may be used to create robust lipid (bilayer) membranes that do not rely on liquid water to retain their structure. These collected findings expand how living membranes may be modulated or reorganized in vivo, and also suggest new ways to create programmable lipid-based materials. |
