Mesoscopic models of lipid bilayers and bilayers with embedded ...

Acknowledgments
This thesis would not have been possible without the help and support of a great
number of people. First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Berend Smit, for
giving me the opportunity to start a PhD in his group, for his constant enthusiasm,
encouragement and support, and for his unshakable trust in my work, which helped
me a great deal to overcome my own doubts. I am thankful beyond words to Maria
Maddalena Sperotto, for everything she taught me about membranes, for giving me
energy and motivation for my research, and for her constant support and friendship.
Without her this thesis would probably have never been completed. I also want
to thank Marieke Kranenburg for the very fruitful collaboration and the stimulating
discussions, and Thijs Vlugt for everything he taught me about simulations and for
the nice time we had while sharing the same office. I am also extremely grateful to
Gooitzen Zwanenburg for his precious help with computer related problems and for
being always nice. I would like to thank Antoinette Killian, Els van der Brink van der
Laan, Ben de Kruijff, and all the people in the Biochemistry of Membranes group
at Utrecht University for introducing me to the world of “real” membranes and for
making me feel always welcome whenever I visited their group. I am also grateful to
Daan Frenkel for the rare, but extremely instructive, discussions. I wish to thank Edo
Boek for his careful translation of the Dutch samenvatting, and Johan Padding for
his help with the thesis cover. Thanks to Peter Coveney for letting me have the extra
time I needed to finish the writing of this thesis. A sincere thank to CPe and Colin for
their encouragement during the writing of this thesis. I also wish to thank the people
that made my days at the University enjoyable, and that helped me in many different
ways: Jan Pierre, Titus, Vincent, Ranieri, Tim, Nicole, Renate, Maureen, Fred. A
special thank also to Lucia Minozzi and Elio Cecchetto for being my paranimfen, and
friends. Finally, words are not enough to thank the people that, with their friendship,
made the four years I spent in Amsterdam a very happy and special time for me: to
Lucia and Arjan, for their invaluable friendship and their constant support, to Elio,
Daniele, Guido, Barbara, Massimo, Marjolen, Marco, Jos, Fabrizio, Annamaria, Luca,
Elly, Hans, Miki, Roberto, Frank, Roberta. This thesis is dedicated to all the people in
my family, for their love and trust, and for everything, grazie.