My research broadly envisage on understanding principles of soft condensed matter using multi-scale modeling. Dynamical processes involving soft matter have a broad range of coupled time-scales where small changes in molecular level weak interactions lead to large effect on system's macroscopic properties. Using multi-scale modeling we aim at exploring the structure function relationships at different time and length scales important for different biological and non-biological soft matter systems. In particular, my focus is on water dynamics at the hydration layers, self assembly of surfactants, protein-membrane-water systems, their interactions with other bio-molecules and polymer dynamics related to chemical and activated processes. We develop and use modeling tools ranging from molecular simulations to study the structure and dynamics of proteins, lipids, water at the micro and meso-scale as well as the analytical theory at the macro-scale to investigate different processes involving biological chain and macromolecules.

The areas of my research interests are as follows,


• Hydration Water Dynamics near Interfaces
• Protein-Membrane Biophysics
• Phase transformations of Surfactants
• Dynamics and Reaction Rates of Activated Processes involving Polymers

Selected Publications (Scopus ID, ORCID ID )

• Quantifying dynamical heterogeneity length scales of interface water across model membrane phase transitions, Sheeba Malik, Smarajit Karmakar, and Ananya Debnath*, J. Chem. Phys. as Communication 158, 091103 (2023)
• Dehydration induced dynamical heterogeneity and ordering mechanism of lipid bilayers, Sheeba Malik and Ananya Debnath*, J. Chem. Phys. 154, 174904 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0044614.
• Dynamic coupling of hydration layer to a fluid phospholipid membrane: Intermittency and multiple time-scale relaxations, Abhinav Srivastava, Sheeba Malik, Smarajit Karmakar and Ananya Debnath*, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 2020, 22, 21158-21168, doi ="10.1039/D0CP02803G"
• Quantification of spatio-temporal scales of dynamical heterogeneity of water near lipid membranes above supercooling", Abhinav Srivatsava, Smarajit Karmakar and Ananya Debnath*, Soft Matter, 2019, DOI: 10.1039/C9SM01725A.
• Unusual confinement properties of a water insoluble small peptide hydrogel, Nilotpal Singha, Arpita Srivastava, Bapan Pramanik, Sahnawaz Ahmed, Payel Dowari, Sumit Chowdhuri, Basab Kanti Das, Ananya Debnath* and Debapratim Das*, Chemical Science, 2019,10, 5920-5928.
• Hydration dynamics of a lipid membrane: Hydrogen bond networks and lipid-lipid associations, Abhinav Srivastava and Ananya Debnath*, The Journal of Chemical Physics (2018), 094901 (2018); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5011803.
• Derivation of coarse-grained simulation models of chlorophyll molecules in lipid bilayers for applications in light harvesting systems, Ananya Debnath*, Sabine Wiegand, Harald Paulsen, Kurt Kremer, Christine Peter, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, (2015), 17, 22054-22063.
• Simulation of Influence of Bilayer Melting on Dynamics and Thermodynamics of Interfacial Water - Ananya Debnath*, K. G. Ayappa* and Prabal K. Maiti*, Phys. Rev. Lett., (2013), 110, 018303.
• Barrier Crossing by a Star Polymer - Ananya Debnath and K. L. Sebastian*, Physical Review E, 76, 051803 (2007). Selected for Virtual Journal of Biological Physics Research, November 15, 2007.