RESEARCH PROFILE

Bart Markvoort is assistant professor in the Computational Biology group of the TU/e department of Biomedical Engineering. His research focuses on molecular simulations of self-assembly and self-organization processes in biologically relevant systems, with focus on both method development and application. His current research projects include molecular dynamics simulations of phospholipid membranes, proteins and DNA, as well as the modeling of supramolecular (co)polymerizations and nanoparticles using Monte Carlo techniques. He is also active in the fields of synthetic biology, DNA nanotechnology, bioinformatics, and multi-scale modeling.

Molecular simulations can act as a digital microscope. They allow us to observe how simple interactions between atoms and molecules give rise to intricate dynamics of molecular systems.

ACADEMIC BACKGROUND

Bart Markvoort studied Applied Physics at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e, The Netherlands), where he obtained his Master's degree in the Theoretical Physics group on the subject of small angle x-ray scattering on asphaltenes. He then started PhD research in the Parallel Systems group of the TU/e department of Mathematics and Computer Science on the application of wavelets in parallelized density functional theory calculations. In 2006, he obtained his PhD for his thesis 'Towards Hybrid Molecular Simulations' under the supervision of professors Peter Hilbers and Thijs Michels. He then was appointed in his current position as assistant professor in the Computational Biology group of the TU/e, heading the molecular simulations subgroup. As of 2010 he is also a member of the Institute for Complex Molecular Systems at TU/e.