Rate My Professor Nick Brooks

Professor Nick Brooks holds the position of Professor of Membrane Biophysics in the Department of Chemistry within the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Imperial College London. He leads the Dynamic Soft Systems group, focusing on the physics and chemistry of soft matter systems with biological relevance. His research examines the structural and dynamic properties of lipid membranes and assemblies under extreme conditions, including high pressure and hypergravity. Key areas include lipid phase transitions, mechanical properties of asymmetric bilayers, electrostatic effects on cubic lipid phases, and the fabrication of biomimetic vesicle networks and artificial cell membranes. Brooks collaborates within the Membrane Biophysics Platform, contributing to advancements in understanding cellular adaptation to environmental stresses and applications in synthetic biology and chemical biology.

In addition to his research, Professor Brooks is Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Chemistry, where he leads the Year 1 'The Reaction Toolkit' module and the Year 4 'Membrane Biophysics' module. He serves as Deputy Director of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Chemical Biology: Innovation in Life Sciences and is a member of the Institute of Chemical Biology Executive Board. His excellence in research and education has earned recognition through the Faculty of Natural Sciences President's Award for Excellence in Research (2011), the President's and Rector's Awards for Excellence in Teaching (2013), and the Royal Society of Chemistry Higher Education Award (2022) as part of the Chemistry Lab-in-a-Box team. Notable publications include 'Engineering compartmentalized biomimetic micro-and nanocontainers' (2017), 'Sculpting and fusing biomimetic vesicle networks using optical tweezers' (2018), 'Electrostatic swelling of bicontinuous cubic lipid phases' (2015), 'Measurements of the effect of membrane asymmetry on the mechanical properties of lipid bilayers' (2015), 'Pressure effects on lipids and bio-membrane assemblies' (2014), and 'Measuring Intracellular Viscosity in Conditions of Hypergravity' (2019, Biophysical Journal). His work informs developments such as high-specificity pesticides and membrane reactivity studies.