In this lecture, I explore new ideas about how lipid components of the plasma membrane may be organized by active processes, rather than by passive mechanisms involving thermodynamic phase separation. I introduce the idea that the structure of the cell membrane at different length scales may arise as a result of the composite nature of the membrane bilayer and the underlying actin-cytoskeleton. Once again, it appears that the secret of the organization of membranes and membrane components in...

In this part, I focus on our laboratory's ongoing preoccupation with rafts where we study the characteristics a popular "raft-marker", a class of cell surface lipid-tethered proteins, the GPI-anchored proteins. These lipid-tethered molecules are sorted at the cell surface into a specialized endocytic pathway, suggesting their segregation at the cell surface. Here I describe collaborative interdisciplinary work from my laboratory and that of my physicist colleague, Prof. Madan Rao, where we...

The plasma membrane demarcates the inside of the living cell from the outside, serving both as the ultimate physical barrier and location where the cell transacts its business with the outside world. The study of the structure of cell membranes continues to be fertile ground for research for many biologists today; the idea of "Membrane Rafts" has only heightened interest in this area. The main focus of this three part series is to explore the concept of "Membrane Rafts". In the first part,...