Andrew Daufel

My current work centers around understanding the biophysical basis of life. Specifically, I've begun to focus on the origin of the membrane structure which all cells contain. Original membranes likely were far less complicated than the modern stable membranes which we are used to. However, which simple amphipathic molecule aggregation state could represent a proto-membrane is poorly understood. Catanionic detergent vesicles (CDVs) pose as a possible proto-membrane forming a stable bilayer from oppositely charged, single chain amphipathic molecules. My work focuses on examining their protein competency. Our initial research indicates CDVs can fold protein into them and remain vesicles, demonstrating a crucial factor needed for proto-membranes. With these properties, we hope to use CDVs as a mimetic to study early membranes. Additionally, CDVs native charge asymmetry means they could serve as a membrane memetic for outer membrane proteins which evolved in a charge asymmetric environment. This could enable new understandings of many often hard to work with outer membrane proteins, yielding new information about how gram-negative bacteria interact with their environment.