Darryl Y. Sasaki

TL;DR: The self-assembly of conjugated polymer/silica nanocomposite films with hexagonal, cubic or lamellar mesoscopic order using polymerizable amphiphilic diacetylene molecules as both structure-directing agents and monomers is reported.

TL;DR: A third general mechanism for bending fluid cellular membranes: protein–protein crowding is proposed, and it is found that even proteins unrelated to membrane curvature, such as green fluorescent protein (GFP), can bend membranes when sufficiently concentrated.

TL;DR: It is shown that protein crowding on lipid domain surfaces creates a protein layer that buckles outward, spontaneously bending the domain into stable buds and tubules, suggesting the intriguing possibility that confining structures, such as lipid domains and protein lattices, can amplify membrane bending by concentrating the steric interactions between bound proteins.

TL;DR: In this paper, a mechanically induced color transition in polydiacetylene thin films has been generated at the nanometer scale using the tips of two different scanning probe microscopes.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide a succinct review of the latest insights and applications involving polydiacetylenes (PDAs) and then focus in more detail on their work concerning ultrathin films, specifically structural properties, mechanochromism, and in-plane mechanical anisotropy of PDA monolayers.