Effect of pulsed electric field on artificial lipid bilayers

  • type:Bachelorarbeit
  • person in charge:Dr. Aude Silve; aude.silve@kit.edu
  • When biological membranes are submitted to a pulsed electric field, they are altered and become permeable. This phenomenon, known as electroporation is the base of many applications in the food industry and in cancer medicine.
    The objective of the internship is to design an experiment in order to test the effect of electric pulses on artificial membranes made of lipid bilayers. The properties of the artificial membranes (surface conductance and capacitance) will be evaluated through electrical measurements using a patch clamp amplifier. Monitoring of those electrical properties during and after delivery of electric pulses will then be used to quantify the effect of high pulsed electric fields on the artificial membrane.
    The internship will include the installation of the experimental setup, development of an appropriate experimental protocol, performance of experiments and development of programs (Matlab) for the analysis of the data.
    We seek above all a motivated student, interested in multidisciplinary approaches and with high affinity to experimental approaches and a good biophysical imagination!