Polymer field theory (or known as self-consistent field theory, SCFT) is a widely used statistical field theory technique to understand equilibrium phase behavior of systems such as homopolymers in solvent, block copolymers or, polyelectrolytes. Our usage of polymer field theory is primary directed towards problems such as: semi-flexible liquid crystalline polymers, membrane phase behavior and creating a dynamic polymer field theory.
Understanding cell organization depends on critical insights of structure and function of biological membranes. Despite a great deal of progress on identifying molecular components, we lack an understanding of their self-organization and dynamics as well as biophysical and bio-mechanical properties. We propose to elucidate the self-organization and mechanical properties of biological membranes using isights from soft-matter and cellular biophysics. A general aim is to learn new principles that could explain the self-organization, biophysical and bio-mechanical properties of the endosomal membrane and could be generally applied to cellular membrane systems. We aim to use a suit of statistical mechanical theories (Polymer Field Theory) as well as molecular simulations to understand relevant questions.