DNA is stored in vivo in a highly compact, so-called condensed phase, where gene
regulatory processes are governed by the intricate interplay between different states of DNA …

Helices are essential building blocks of living organisms, be they molecular fragments of
proteins (α-helices), macromolecules (DNA and collagen), or multimolecular assemblies …

Charges on biological polymers in physiologically relevant solution conditions are strongly
screened by water and salt solutions containing counter-ions. However, the entropy of these …

The complexation of polyelectrolytes with other oppositely charged structures gives rise to a
great variety of functional materials with potential applications in a wide spectrum of …

Soft condensed matter physics, which emerged as a distinct branch of physics in the 1990s,
studies complex fluids: liquids in which structures with length scale between the molecular …

Ions are ubiquitous in nature. They play a key role for many biological processes on the
molecular scale, from molecular interactions, to mechanical properties, to folding, to self …

Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) packages its micrometers-long double-stranded DNA
genome into a nanometer-scale protein shell, termed the capsid. Upon confinement within …

Nucleic acids are a special class of negatively charged polymers, and they can complex with
cationic small molecules and polymers to form polyelectrolyte complexes of rich …

The effective interactions and phase behavior of protein solutions under strong electrostatic
coupling conditions are difficult to understand due to the complex charge pattern and …

The creation of gold surfaces modified by single-or double-stranded DNA self-assembled
monolayers (SAMs) is shown to produce heterogeneous surface packing densities through …