Welcome!
I am currently a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University, working in the group of Prof. Erik Luijten and collaborating with the group of Prof. Samuel I. Stupp.
Education:

• Ph.D. in Theoretical Chemistry (2016),
  University of Cambridge, UK.
  Advisor: Prof. Daan Frenkel
• B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Physics (2012),
  University of Maribor, Slovenia.

My research interests span from statistical physics and chemistry to soft materials and polymer science. While these fields are diverse, numerous important problems require understanding the collective processes arising from many interacting components. I delight in applying the general but powerful tools of statistical mechanics and numerical simulations to uncover intriguing and often counter-intuitive collective phenomena. I very much enjoy working with experimentalists.

Although the free energy of a genome packing into a virus is dominated by DNA-DNA interactions, ordering of the DNA inside the capsid is elasticity driven, suggesting general solutions with DNA organized into spool-like domains. Using analytical calculations and computer simulations of a long elastic filament confined to a spherical container, we show that the ground state is not a single spool as assumed hitherto, but an ordering mosaic of multiple homogeneously ordered domains. At low densities, we observe concentric spools, while at higher densities, other morphologies emerge, which resemble topological links.

Spontaneous domain formation in spherically-confined elastic filaments
T. Curk*, J. D. Farrell*, J. Dobnikar, R. Podgornik
Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 047801 (2019)

We rationalized design rules for super-selective targeting using multivalent polymers, in collaboration with Dr. Galina Dubacheva at ENS Paris-Saclay and Prof. Ralf Richter at Leeds. We have also improved the sequence design of nucleotide probes for pathogen genome detection in collaboration with Prof. Rosalind J. Allen at Edinburgh

Computational design of probes to detect bacterial genomes by multivalent binding
T. Curk, et al, and Rosalind J. Allen
Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 117, 8719 (2020)

Multivalent Recognition at Fluid Surfaces: The Interplay of Receptor Clustering and Superselectivity
G. V. Dubacheva*, T. Curk*, D. Frenkel, and R. P. Richter
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 141, 2577 (2019)

Designing multivalent probes for tunable superselective targeting
G. V. Dubacheva, T. Curk, R. Auzly-Velty, D. Frenkel, and R. P. Richter
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 112, 5579–5584 (2015)

Superselective targeting using multivalent polymers
G. V. Dubacheva, T. Curk, B. M. Mognetti, R. Auzly-Velty, D. Frenkel, and R. P. Richter
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 136, 1722–1725 (2014)

Interactions with multicomponent membranes are difficult to predict due to Here we analytically derived design rules for multicomponent interactions and, supported by Monte Carlo simulations, demonstrated a general route towards targeting multicomponent cell membranes. We also show the effect of intrinsic curvature of receptors, in collaboration with Andjela Saric at UCL. Work on immune response via activation of TLR9 receptors by multivalent DNA--peptide aggregates led to a breakthrough in our understanding of immune system activation by DNA-peptide complexes on the cellular level and points to a physical origin of certain autoimmune diseases like Psoriasis. In collaboration with the experimental group of Gerard Wong at UCLA,

Optimal multivalent targeting of membranes with many distinct receptors
T. Curk, J. Dobnikar, and D. Frenkel
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 114, 7210–7215 (2017)

Controlling cargo trafficking in multicomponent membranes
T. Curk P. Wirnsberger, J. Dobnikar, D. Frenkel, and A. Šarić
Nano Lett. 18, 9 (2018) [front cover]

Liquid-crystalline ordering of antimicrobial peptide-DNA complexes controls TLR9 activation
N. W. Schmidt*, F. Jin*, R. Lande*, T. Curk*, W. Xian, C. Lee, L. Frasca, D. Frenkel, J. Dobnikar, M. Gilliet, and G. C. L. Wong
Nature Materials 14, 696–700 (2015)

We showed how confining nanoparticles to polymer brushes leads to microphase separation and pattern formation. Patterns can be controlled by external fields, thus opening up new routes for the design of thin structured films.

Nanoparticle organization in sandwiched polymer brushes
T. Curk, F. J. Martinez-Veracoechea, D. Frenkel, and J. Dobnikar
Nano Lett. 14, 2617–2622 (2014)

Collective ordering of colloids in grafted polymer layers
T. Curk, F. J. Martinez-Veracoechea, D. Frenkel, and J. Dobnikar
Soft Matter 9, 5565 (2013)