| Sumario: | When phospholipids dissolve in water they self-assemble into a variety of structures of which
bilayers have the greatest biological relevance. Bio-membranes are the most complex examples of
lipid bilayers as they have evolved to accommodate the needs of specialized cells, organelles, and
other sub-cellular structures. However, even the simplest lipid bilayer offers a repertoire of
behaviours that is amenable of exploration with different levels of resolution in space and time. For
example, while certain properties of the membranes are well described considering the membrane
as an elastic sheet, others demand a more detailed description that takes into account the atomic
nature of the lipids and the forces that keep the bilayer together. Between these two extreme
representations of the membrane, one fairly schematic the other very elaborate, there is a range of
“coarse-grain" models that can be interrogated with the aid of computer simulations.
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