Seminaire Maëva Almeida - SIMM- 11.06.2026

Structure-Properties Relationships of Fatty Acid-Polymeric and Protein Self-Assemblies​

Maëva Almeida

Laboratoire Sciences et Ingénierie de la Matière Molle, ESPCI, Paris.

Abstract:

Self-assembly provides a powerful route to engineer soft materials with tunable structures and functionalities across multiple length scales. Understanding how molecular interactions govern the formation of supramolecular architectures and their resulting properties is key to the rational design of functional materials.

This seminar will explore structure-property relationships in two classes of self-assembled systems: fatty acid/polymer assemblies and protein fibrillar networks. The first part will focus on stimuli-responsive fatty acid-based nanostructures and their interactions with functional polymers. By tuning molecular composition, pH, temperature, and polymer architecture, a wide range of morphologies can be obtained, including micelles, multilamellar tubes, lamellar phases, and vesicles. These structural transitions strongly influence the rheological and physicochemical properties of the systems, providing valuable design principles for biocompatible and responsive materials suitable for drug delivery applications. The second part will address protein self-assembly and amyloid fibrillation, with a particular emphasis on the emergence of adhesive properties in fibrillar protein networks. A rheology based approach enables fibrillation to be induced and characterized in situ under controlled conditions, while preserving the evolving network structure. This methodology provides direct insights into the relationship between fibril formation, network organization and adhesion, revealing the potential of fibrillated proteins as bioinspired adhesive materials.

Together, these studies illustrate how controlling self-assembly pathways, from fatty acid and polymer nanostructures to protein fibrillar networks, enables the development of soft materials with tailored structural, mechanical, and functional properties.