Dr Charley Schaefer

Profile

Lecturer in Theoretical Soft Matter and Biological Physics (2024-Present),
Researcher Co-Investigator (Physics of Life, University of York, 2022-2024),
PDRA University of York (Silk Research, 2017-2022),
PDRA Durham University (Silk Research, 2016-2017),
Organic Electronics Device Physicist (Simbeyond BV, Eindhoven, 2016-2017),
PhD Applied Physics (OPV Research, Eindhoven, 2016),
MSc Molecular Engineering (Eindhoven, 2012),
BSc Chemical Engineering (Eindhoven, 2010)

Research interests

My primary interest is to understand how molecules interact and self-assemble into larger structures. My expertise is in physical modelling and a range of simulation techniques, which enable the identification of the interpinning physics of phenomena in biology, and which also enable the development of engineering rules to manipulate living systems or design artificial ones.

Examples include intracellular biomolecular condensates with sizes of 100 up to 500 nanometers, and which are found both in prokaryots (E coli bacteria; see Science Advances 2021) and in eukaryots (algae; see PRL 2023). Advancing our understanding of these examples will help the development of novel anti-biotics, novel protein-production methodologies, and the development of CO2 fixating plants with improved crop yields. In particular the biomolecular ‘pyrenoid’ condensate in algae is a beautiful model system where the colloid-like folded ‘Rubisco’ holoenzyme is crosslinked by the unfolded disordered ‘EPYC1’ poly-peptide. In PRL 2023 we describe how single-molecule characterisation using Surface Plasmon Resonance and Single-Molecule Microscopy can be used to correctly predict the conditions under which the condensate forms. 

At the larger scale my research focusses on biopolymer networks such as silk, produced by the B. mori silk worm. Silk fibres form from these networks through a process known as ‘flow-induced crystallisation’, which is similar to the industrial process by which plastic fibres (e.g., nylon) are formed, but is produced at much lower energetic expense and with water as the only by-product. See Macromolecules 2020 for the application of ‘sticky polymer’ theory to the linear rheology of silk, and PRL 2021 and J. Rheol 2022 for some of the theoretical consequences of the protein’s ‘stickiness’ to the non-linear rheology and its fibre formation.

A common denominator within these research activities is the role of specific and non-specific interactions between the molecular constituents, as well as the degree by which the proteins are ordered or disordered.
In order to model how such molecular properties encode for the emergence of larger structures and their functional properties, I develop theories and models, as well as numerical/simulation algorithms.