Mikko Karttunen

Contact Information
Title: Professor
Office: ChB 072
Phone (Office): ext 86335
E-mail: mkarttu@uwo.ca
Physical & Analytical Teaching Division
Theory and Computation
Computational chemistry & biological physics, Multiscale simulation methods, QM/MM and coarse-graining Lattice Boltzmann methods, Polymers, Intrinsically disordered proteins, Lipid membranes and peptides
Education
MSc: Tampere University of Technology, Finland; PhD: McGill University; Postdoc: Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Germany
AWARDS
- Ontario Early Reseachers Award
- NSERC Discovery Accelerator
- EU DEISA Extreme Computing
- Distinguished Research Professor
RESEARCH
My research focuses on the properties of biological & soft matter using theory and the methods of computational chemistry and physics. Typical systems are at the interface between materials science, biology & biomedical sciences. I am interested in problems such as lipid diffusion, sterols, bacterial toxins, membrane proteins, antibiotics, translocation of DNA, peptides and sugars. I am also working on magnetic materials, pattern formation and non-equilibrium dynamics.
Movies and visualizations at our Flickr site.
TEACHING
- Computational modeling
- Statistical mechanics
- Quantum mechanics
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
- Elucidating Lipid Conformations in the Ripple Phase: Machine Learning Reveals Four Lipid Populations. Davies, Matthew; Reyes-Figueroa, A. D.; Gurtovenko, Andrey A.; Frankel, Daniel; Karttunen, Mikko. Biophys. J. 122, P442-450 (2023).
- Collective Interactions among Organometallics Are Exotic Bonds Hidden on Lab Shelves. Sowlati-Hashjin, Shahin; Šadek, Vojtěch; Sadjadi, Seyedabdolreza; Karttunen, Mikko; Martín-Pendás, Angel; Foroutan-Nejad, Cina. Nat. Commun. 13, 2069, (2022).
- AlphaFold2: A Role for Disordered Protein/Region Prediction?. Wilson, Carter J.; Choy, Wing-Yiu; Karttunen, Mikko. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 23, 4591, (2022).
- Jamming and Force Distribution in Growing Epithelial Tissue. Madhikar, Pranav; Åström, Jan; Baumeier, Björn; Karttunen, Mikko. Phys. Rev. Research 3, 023129, (2021).
- How to Control Interactions of Cellulose-Based Biomaterials with Skin: The Role of Acidity in the Contact Area. Gurtovenko, Andrey A.; Karttunen, Mikko. Soft Matter 17, 6507–6518, (2021).
- Insights into the Polyhexamethylene Biguanide (PHMB) Mechanism of Action on Bacterial Membrane and DNA: A Molecular Dynamics Study. Sowlati-Hashjin, Shahin; Carbone, Paola; Karttunen, Mikko. J. Phys. Chem. B 124, 4487–4497, (2020).