Soft Matter, Volume 4 Lipid Bilayers and Red Blood Cells

The fourth volume in this series focuses on biological membrane science, in particular its biophysics. Clearly divided into two parts, the first covers red blood cell shapes, while the second part on molecular simulation provides in-depth information on how to make significant progress with membrane characterization by means of models, and how to refine them by comparing them to experiments. The result is a highly relevant monograph for both an understanding of the biophysical concepts as well as of novel applications.

Gerhard Gompper received his Ph.D. in Physics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, Germany. After a postdoctoral stay at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA, he returned to Munich for his habilitation. From 1994 to 1999, he held a staff scientist position at the Max-Planck-Institute for Colloid- and Interface Science in Berlin-Teltow. Following this, he was jointly appointed as a director at the Institute for Solid State Physics at the Research Center Juelich and as a full professor at the University of Cologne. He was recently honored with the Erwin-Schroedinger-Award.

Michael Schick obtained his Ph.D. in Physics at Stanford University. After a post-doctoral position at Case Western Reserve University, he joined the faculty of the University of Washington in 1969. He has been honored with a Fellowship in the American Physical Society and a Humboldt Foundation Research Award, which he spent at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich.