Université de Fribourg

Against the rules: pressure induced transition from high to reduced order

Neuhaus, Frederik ; Mueller, Dennis ; Tanasescu, Radu ; Stefaniu, Cristina ; Zaffalon, Pierre-Léonard ; Balog, Sandor ; Ishikawa, Takashi ; Reiter, Renate ; Brezesinski, Gerald ; Zumbuehl, Andreas

In: Soft Matter, 2018, vol. 14, no. 19, p. 3978–3986

Envisioning the next generation of drug delivery nanocontainers requires more in- depth information on the fundamental physical forces at play in bilayer membranes. In order to achieve this, we combine chemical synthesis with physical–chemical analytical methods and probe the relationship between a molecular structure and its biophysical properties. With the aim of increasing the number of...

Université de Fribourg

Rigid urea and self-healing thiourea ethanolamine monolayers

Stefaniu, Cristina ; Zaffalon, Pierre-Léonard ; Verolet, Alessio Carmine ∥, Quentin ; Fernandez, Samuel ; Wesolowski, Tomasz A. ; Brezesinski, Gerald ; Zumbuehl, Andreas

In: Langmuir, 2015, vol. 31, no. 4, p. 1296–1302

A series of long-tail alkyl ethanolamine analogs containing amide-, urea-, and thiourea moieties was synthesized and the behavior of the corresponding monolayers was assessed on the Langmuir–Pockels trough combined with grazing incidence X-ray diffraction experiments and complemented by computer simulations. All compounds form stable monolayers at the soft air/water interface. The phase...

Université de Fribourg

Monolayer properties of 1,3-diamidophospholipids

Fedotenko, lllya A. ; Stefaniu, Cristina ; Brezesinski, Gerald ; Zumbuehl, Andreas

In: Langmuir, 2013, vol. 29, no. 30, p. 9428–9435

While nature provides an endless variety of phospholipids presenting hydrolyzable ester linkages for the 1,2-positioned hydrocarbon tails, we designed and synthesized 1,3-diamidophospholipids which contain stable fatty acid amides. These new phospholipids form faceted unilamellar vesicles with mechanosensitive properties. Aiming to understand the mechanism responsible for this behavior at a...