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The majority of cellular processes are related to physical and chemical properties of the complex lipid-protein membranes. We focus on characterizing and disentangling the active biomembrane processes by development of experimental in-vitro systems and methodologies. With recent advances in lipid-protein vesicle techniques, we have facilitated new understanding of the lateral organization of membranes with biological nano-machines such as active membrane transport protein Na, K ATPase. Our studies suggest a strong interplay between lipid membrane conformations, membrane phase, activity of proteins, role of membrane compositional asymmetry and crowding. The different methodologies to characterize the system include functional reconstitution of active protein in well-defined complex membranes, immunolabeling, super-resolution imaging, fluorescence microscopy, vesicle fluctuation analysis, micropipette aspiration and microfluidics. Our approach allows for systematic building up the complexity of synthetic membranes to mimic and understand biological systems related to vesicular trafficking, signaling, electrophysiology and metabolism, from a biophysics perspective. |