Interdependence of Structure and Function in Biological Materials
Peter Fratzl holds Lecture Series for an Interdisciplinary Audience at HU
Biological materials are built with a limited number of building blocks, based on polysaccharides, proteins, and minerals. Copyright: Julia Blumenthal
Every second Tuesday 4:15–5:45 pm, Cluster Co-Director Peter Fratzl is giving a digital lecture at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. The lecture series starts on April 13th, 2021 and will be addressed to a pluridisciplinary audience, including sciences, design and cultural studies. All required basics from biophysics and biochemistry to mechanics will be provided. Biological materials adapt their structure to functional needs. The lectures introduce relevant structural features from molecular to macroscopic scales using examples for materials based on proteins or on polysaccharides, in particular cellulose and chitin. Some biological materials – like bone – are reinforced with minerals. The importance of hierarchical assemblies of building blocks, such as fibers and tessellations will be discussed.
Schedule (every second Tuesday, 4:15–5:45 pm):
- 13 April: Introduction – Hierarchical Structure Versus Function, Adaptive Growth
- 27 April: Protein Sequence, Conformation and Assembly: From Filaments to Materials
- 11 May: Shape Change Materials from Plants
- 25 May: Bone Structure and Material Adaptation
- 08 June: Spider Cuticle as a Versatile Toolbox
- 22 June: Mechanical Behavior of Tessellations
- 06 July: Summary, Conclusion and Outlook
All Cluster members and interested persons are warmly invited! Access to Zoom can be requested from the MoA PR Team at moa.public.relations [at] hu-berlin.de. Accompanying the lecture series, a Moodle course has been set up that provides relevant materials; access can also be obtained from the MoA PR Team.
More Information can be found here: https://agnes.hu-berlin.de/
Zoom Conference