John F. Nagle
Emeritus Professor
Biological Physics Experiment and Theory
Wean Hall 6420
412-951-5748
Education & Professional Experience
Ph.D.: Yale University
Professional Societies:
Fellow, American Physical Society
Biophysical Society
Honors and Awards:
Biophysical Society Avanti Award in Lipids (2003)
Research Interests
Prof. John Nagle's research is in the area of biological physics. The particular systems under study are lipid bilayers, which form the structural basis of biomembranes, as well as these systems with additives pertinent to biomembranes. The Nagle group's studies focus on x-ray scattering, as well as theoretical modeling, statistical mechanical calculations and simulations, and volume measurements. The first goal is to obtain reliable data for basic structural properties and their mechanical properties. Another goal is to elucidate the interactions between bilayers. For biologically relevant fluid phase lipid bilayers, these goals involve measuring nanoscale fluctuations, for which they use synchrotron x-rays. A longer-range goal is to understand how the molecular interactions bring about the structure and the fluctuations.
Selected Publications
John F. Nagle, Measuring the bending modulus of lipid bilayers with cholesterol, Physical Review E 104, 044405 (2021)
Patricia Bassereau, Tobias Baumgartner, Rumiana Dimova, Evan A. Evans, Stephanie Tristram-Nagle and John F. Nagle, A needless but interesting controversy, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118, 2025011118 (2021)
M. Mert Terzi, Markus Deserno and John F. Nagle, Mechanical properties of lipid bilayers: a note on the Poisson ratio, Soft Matter 15, 9085 (2019)
John F. Nagle, Area Compressibility Moduli of the Monolayer Leaflets of Asymmetric Bilayers from Simulations, Biophys. J. 117, 1051 (2019)
John F. Nagle et al., Revisiting Volumes of Lipid Components in Bilayers, J. Phys. Chem. B 123, 2697 (2019)
John F. Nagle, Pierre Cognet, Fernando G. Dupuy, and Stephanie Tristram-Nagle, Structure of Gel Phase DPPC Determined by X-ray Diffraction, Chem. Phys. Lipids 218, 168 (2019)
Zoran Arsov, Emilio J. González-Ramírez, Felix M. Goñi, Stephanie Tristram-Nagle and John F. Nagle, Phase behavior of palmitoyl and egg sphingomyelin, Chem. Phys. Lipids 213, 102 (2018)
John F. Nagle, X-ray scattering reveals molecular tilt is an order parameter for the main phase transition in a model biomembrane, Phys. Rev. E 96, 030401 (2017)
John F. Nagle, Experimentally Determined Tilt and Bending Moduli of Single-Component Lipid Bilayers, Chem. Phys. Lipids 205, 18 (2017)
J.F. Nagle, K. Akabori, B.W. Treece, S. Tristram‐Nagle, Determination of Mosaicity in Oriented Stacks of Lipid Bilayers, Soft Matter 12, 1884 (2016)
Kiyotaka Akabori, John F. Nagle, Structure of the DMPC lipid bilayer ripple phase, Soft Matter 11, 918 (2015)
Michael S. Jablin, Kiyotaka Akabori and John F. Nagle, Experimental Evidence for Tilt-Dependent Theory of Biomembrane Mechanics, Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 248102 (2014)
John F. Nagle, Introductory Lecture: Basic quantities in model biomembranes, Faraday Discussions 161, 11 (2012)
John F. Nagle, Stephanie Tristram-Nagle, Structure of lipid bilayers, Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Reviews on Biomembranes 1469, 159 (2000)