Mechanics of Cellular Packing of Flexible NanomaterialsZou, GuijincreatorKim, Kyung-SukReaderHurt, RobertReaderGao, HuajianAdvisorBrown University. Engineering: Mechanics of Solidssponsor2019xxi, 103 p.born digitalThesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 2019thesesPacking of flexible nanomaterials within soft confinement such as vesicles and cell membranes is of fundamental interest to the understanding of a wide range of cell activities, including cell shape control, cell division, and nano-cytotoxicity or bactericidal activity. In this thesis, we first show that packing morphology of a flexible nanofiber in vesicle depends on the length and stiffness of the nanofiber, the initial configuration of the nanofiber-vesicle system and the pressure difference across the vesicle membrane. We establish a packing phase diagram based on three distinct vesicle morphologies in equilibrium. Next, we focus on geometrical effects of rigid nanorods with finite and non-uniform diameters, including a cylindrical rod, a rod with widened ends, a cone-shaped rod and a screwdriver-shaped rod on the packing morphologies of vesicles. Later we consider packing of flexible two-dimensional materials in vesicles, a set of buckling analyses lead to phase diagrams of the packing morphologies of the encapsulated sheets. Last but not least, we investigate packing of nanoagents in the lipid bilayers of different cell membranes and demonstrate that the selectivity of membrane-active nanoagents for bacterial membranes correlates with their abilities to penetrate and embed within bacterial-mimic lipid bilayers, but not within cholesterol-rich mammalian-mimic lipid bilayers. Overall this thesis is aimed to provide some of the theoretical foundation needed to understand biological and environmental interactions of nanomaterials.BiomechanicsMolecular dynamics--Computer simulationCell membranesAnti-infective agentscell-nanomaterial interactionvesicle packingEnglishRPB20200720In CopyrightAll rights reserved. Collection is open to the Brown community for research.dissertations