Basic Aspects and Applications of Lipids and Protein Dynamics

The understanding of dynamics and functioning of biological membranes is one of the greatest challenges in modern biology and biophysics. Few experimental techniques can access dynamical properties in biological materials on the nanometer scale, and resolve the dynamics of proteins, lipid, and hydration water molecules, and the interaction between them. In this context, inelastic neutron scattering turned out to be a very powerful tool to study dynamics and interactions in biomolecular materials up to relevant nanosecond timescales and down to the nanometer length scale. This chapter reviews and discusses inelastic neutron scattering experiments to study lipid diffusion, membrane elasticity, and protein-protein interactions of transmembrane proteins.