John Nagle

Professor, Physics

Education

Ph.D., Yale University

Research

Research is in the area of biological physics, with an interface with soft condensed matter physics. The particular systems under study are lipid bilayers, which form the structural basis of biomembranes. My studies focus on x-ray scattering, as well as theoretical modeling, statistical mechanical calculations and simulations, neutron scattering, and measurements of specific heat and volume as a function of temperature. The first goal is to obtain reliable data for basic structural properties. The second goal is to elucidate the interactions between bilayers. For biologically relevant fluid phase lipid bilayers, both goals involve measuring nanoscale fluctuations, which we do using  synchrotron x-rays. A longer-range goal is to understand how the molecular interactions bring about the structure and the fluctuations.

Selected Publications

• J. Pan, S. Tristram-Nagle, and J. F. Nagle, Effect of cholesterol on structural and mechanical properties of membranes depends on lipid chain saturation, Phys. Rev. E. 5/09.
• S. D. Guler, D. D. Ghosh, J. Pan, J. C. Mathai, M. L. Zeidel, J. F. Nagle and S. Tristram-Nagle, Effects of Ether Linkage on Lipid Bilayer Structure and Water Permeability,Chem. Phys. Lipids 160, 33-44 (2009).
• J. Pan, D. P. Tieleman, J. F. Nagle, N. Kucerka, and S. Tristram-Nagle, Alamethicin in Lipid Bilayers: Combined Use of X-ray Scattering and MD Simulations, Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1788, 1387-1397 (2009).
• T. T. Mills, J. Huang, G. W. Feigenson, and J. F. Nagle, Effects of Cholesterol and Unsaturated DOPC Lipid on Chain Packing of Saturated Gel-Phase DPPC Bilayers, Gen. Physiol. Biophys. 28, 126-139 (2009).
• J. Pan, T. T. Mills, S. Tristram-Nagle and J. F. Nagle, Cholesterol Perturbs Lipid Bilayers Non-Universally, Phys. Rev. Letts. 100, 198103 (2008).
• T. T. Mills, G. E. S. Toombes, S. Tristram-Nagle, D-M. Smilgies, G. W. Feigenson and J. F. Nagle, Order Parameters and Areas in Fluid-Phase Oriented Lipid Membranes Using Wide Angle X-Ray Scattering, Biophys. J. 95, 669 (2008).

(See: http://lipid.phys.cmu.edu/ for all recent publications.)