Paul Smith
Ph.D. Student in Physics
Member of Biological Physics & Soft Matter Group as well as the Theory & Simulation of Condensed Matter Group
Warren L. DeLano Memorial PyMOL Open-Source Fellow (2018-2019)
Mitacs Globalink Research Intern (2020-2021)
e-mail: paul.smith@kcl.ac.uk
Biography
I graduated from King’s College London with a Bachelor of Engineering and an MSc in Physics. My research involves the use of molecular dynamics simulations to help understand emergent biological phenomena. Over the past few years, I have studied the properties of biological hydrogels, the role of water-mediated interactions in nucleating β-turns in small peptides, and how the molecular weight of hyaluronic acid modulates its interactions with lipid membranes.
I am now looking forward to investigating the impermeability of the blood-brain barrier, which is a structure that prevents the entry into the brain of over 98% of drugs developed for the treatment of neurological disorders.
Publications
See Google Scholar.
Talks
“The effect of oxidised cholesterol on model red blood cell membranes” (2019) European Biophysics Congress
“The Interaction of Hyaluronic Acid with Lipid Membranes” (2018) CCP5 Summer School – Received a prize for the best talk.