Dr. Rebecca Notman

BSc (Hons), MSc (Cardiff), PhD (London)

Science City Research Fellow

Research Summary

Molecular simulations of biomolecules and materials systems, at both the atomistic and coarse-grained levels. Research includes simulations of peptides interacting with inorganic surfaces, biological membranes and the transport of molecules across membranes, and the molecular structure and organisation of the stratum corneum skin barrier. An additional area of interest is drug delivery and nanomedicine, including characterisation of advanced materials for biomedical applications and transdermal drug delivery.

Selected Publications

• Solution Study of Engineered Quartz Binding Peptides using Replica Exchange Molecular Dynamics, R. Notman, E. E. Oren, C. Tamerler, M. Sarikaya, R. Samudrala, T. R. Walsh, Biomacromolecules 2010, 11, 3266.
  
• Probing the molecular mechanisms of quartz-binding peptides. E. E. Oren, R. Notman, I. W. Kim, J. S. Evans, T. R. Walsh, R. Samudrala, C. Tamerler, M. Sarikaya, Langmuir 2010, 26, 11003.
  
• Molecular dynamics studies of the interactions of water and amino acid analogs with quartz surfaces. R. Notman, T.R. Walsh, Langmuir, 2009, 25, 1638.
• Simulations of skin barrier function: Free energies of hydrophobic and hydrophilic transmembrane pores in ceramide bilayers. R. Notman, J. Anwar, W.J. Briels, M.G. Noro, W.K. den Otter, Biophys. J., 2008, 95, 4763.
• Molecular basis for dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) action on lipid membranes. R. Notman, M.G. Noro, B. O’Malley, J. Anwar, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2006, 128, 13982.