Frank L. Brown

Professor
Joint Appt: Physics and BMSE

Contact Phone

(805) 893-5494

Office Location

Chem 4126

Specialization

Education

Dr. Brown received his B.S. in Chemistry and B.A. in Applied Mathematics from UC Berkeley and his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from MIT. He was a NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at UC San Diego and a Yen Fellow at the University of Chicago before joining the UCSB faculty in 2001. Dr. Brown is the recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar award and the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering.

Research

Research Group Website: http://www.chem.ucsb.edu/~browngroup/

Research in my group is entirely theoretical/computational in nature. Our interests lie at the interface between physical chemistry and biophysics and we use a variety of tools spanning the traditional fields of statistical mechanics, hydrodynamics, elasticity theory and quantum mechanics in our research efforts. Recent work has focused on the dynamics and structure of biomembranes and the interpretation of various spectroscopy experiments (single molecule fluorescence, neutron spin echo, flicker spectroscopy, etc.).

Please see our group webpage for more details.

Publications

Selected Research Publications

M. C. Watson, E. G. Brandt, Paul W. Welch, F. L. H. Brown, Determining Biomembrane Bending Rigidities from Simulations of Modest Size, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109(2) 2012 028102

B. A. Camley, F. L. H. Brown, Contributions to membrane-embedded-protein diffusion beyond hydrodynamic theories, Phys. Rev. E 85(6) 061921 (2012)

M. C. Watson, E. S. Penev, P. M. Welch, F. L. H. Brown, Thermal fluctuations in shape, thickness, and molecular orientation in lipid bilayers, J. Chem. Phys 135 244701 (2011)

E. Ben-Isaac, YK Park, G. Popescu, F. L. H. Brown, N. S. Gov, Y. Shokef, Effective Temperature of Red-Blood-Cell Membrane Fluctuations, Phys. Rev. Lett. 106(23) 2011 238103

B. A. Camley, F. L. H. Brown, Beyond the creeping viscous flow limit for lipid bilayer membranes: Theory of single-particle microrheology, domain flicker spectroscopy, and long-time tails, Phys. Rev. E 84(2) 021904 (2011)

F. L. H. Brown, Continuum simulations of biomembrane dynamics and the importance of hydrodynamic effects, Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics 44(4) 391-432 (2011)

Interpreting Membrane Scattering Experiments at the Mesoscale: The Contribution of Dissipation within the Bilayer, Biophysical Journal, 98, L09-L11 (2010).

Dynamic Simulations of Multicomponent Lipid Membranes over Long Length and Time Scales, B. A. Camley and F. L. H. Brown, Physical Review Letters, 105, 148102 (2010).

Theory for Wavelength-Resolved Photon Emission Statistics in Single-Molecule Fluorescence Spectroscopy, G. Bel and F. L. H. Brown, Physical Review Letters, 102, 018303 (2009).

A hybrid elastic/discrete-particle approach to biomembrane dynamics with application to the mobility of curved integral membrane proteins, A. Naji, P. J. Atzberger and F. L. H. Brown, Physical Review Letters, 102, 138102 (2009).

Elastic Modeling of Biomembranes and Lipid Bilayers. F. L. H. Brown, Annual Review of Physical Chemistry. 59, 685-712 (2008).

Generating Function Methods in Single-Molecule Spectroscopy, F. L. H. Brown, Accounts of Chemical Research, 39, 363-373 (2006).