个人简介

Alex Levine has been a faculty member at UCLA since July of 2005. Before that he was an assistant professor of Physics at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He has done postdoctoral work at Exxon Research & Engineering Co., UPENN, and UCSB. He received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1996 where he did research on the non-equilibrium statistical mechanics of sedimenting suspensions and on the fractional quantum hall effect. In addition, he worked with Sue Coppersmith at AT&T Bell Labs on the dynamics of driven charge density waves. He is currently a member of the California Nanosystems Institute and the UCLA representative on the Science Steering Committee of the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter. He is the co-organizer of the Frontiers in Microrheology Workshop to be held at UCLA in February 2008. He currently works on a variety of problems at the interface of soft condensed matter physics and biophysics.

研究领域

Biophysics/Structural Biology/Physical/Theory/Theoretical Chemistry

We study a variety of problems in the field of soft condensed matter and biophysics. Frequently, our research involves the application of continuum mechanics and hydrodynamics to biomaterials ranging in length scale from single proteins to biopolymer networks spanning tens of microns. We are also studying some aspects of the statistical mechanics of neuronal networks, phase transitions in colloidal crystals, and even laser trapping of colloidal particles with more complex shapes. We benefit from collaborations with a number of experimentalists, working closely with Michael Dennin (UCI), Gabriel Popescu (UIUC), Tony Dinsmore (UMASS), Jeff Urbach (Georgetown), Christoph Schmidt (Göttingen) Giovanni Zocchi (UCLA), Tom Mason (UCLA), Jack Feldman (UCLA), Robijn Bruinsma (UCLA), and Fred MacKintosh (Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam). Please see their webpages to learn more about their exciting work. The Levine group also does theoretical research on the elasticity and dynamics of biomaterials focusing on the mechanical properties of the semiflexible biopolymer networks such as those found in the cytoskeleton and on the mechanics/dynamics of viscous and viscoelastic membranes. To better understand the mechanical properties of the cytoskeleton and other semiflexible polymer networks, they are working to develop an extension of the theory of rubber elasticity that takes into account elastic energy stored in filament bending as well as filament stretching. Additionally, they are exploring the statistical mechanics of non-equilibrium networks in which the filaments are stochastically tensed by molecular motors. This motor activity has been shown to play a large role in the determining the elastic moduli of the F-actin networks. The Levine group has also been exploring the effect of curvature and topology on hydrodynamics in membranes. This work is currently being augmented by more detailed studies of the mobility of transmembrane proteins.

近期论文

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Mark L. Henle and Alex J. Levine, Effective Viscosity of a Dilute Suspension of Membrane-bound Inclusions, Physics of Fluids 21, 033106 (2009). Alex J. Levine and F.C. MacKintosh, The Mechanics and Fluctuation Spectrum of Active Gels, Journal of Physical Chemistry B 113, 3820-3830 (2009). P.-G. de Gennes memorial issue. Robert Brewster, Gary S. Grest, and Alex J. Levine Effects of cohesion on the surface angle and velocity profiles of granular material in a rotating drum, Physical Review E 79, 011305 (2009). Mark L. Henle, R. McGorty, A.B. Schofield, A.D. Dinsmore, and A.J. Levine The effect of curvature and topology on membrane hydrodynamics, Europhysics Letters 84, 48001 (2008). Moumita Das, Alex J. Levine, and F.C. MacKintosh, Buckling and force propagation along intracellular microtubules, Europhysics Letters 84, 18003 (2008). Robert Brewster, Leonardo Silbert, Gary S. Grest, and Alex J. Levine Relationship between interparticle contact lifetimes and rheology in gravity-driven granular flows, Physical Review E 77, 061302 (2008). Jeremy D. Schmit and Alex J. Levine Statistical model for Intermolecular Adhesion in conjugated polymers, Physical Review Letters 100, 198303 (2008). Tatiana Kuribova and Alex J. Levine, Nanorheology of viscoelastic shells: Applications to viral capsids, Physical Review E 77, 031921 (2008). Robert Walder, Alex J. Levine, and Michael Dennin, Rheology of two-dimensional F-actin networks associated with a lipid interface, Physical Review E 77, 011909 (2008).