Rudolf Podgornik (27 August 1955 – 28 December 2024) was a Slovenian theoretical physicist. Podgornik was an emeritus professor at the University of Ljubljana, and at the time of his death held a chair professorship at University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is best known for his work on soft matter physics, physics of Coulombic fluids, physics of macromolecular interactions, Lifshitz theory of Casimir–van der Waals dispersion interaction, the Casimir effect, and biophysics, including the physics of membranes, polymers, polyelectrolytes, DNA, RNA,and viruses.
Life and career Podgornik was born on 27 August 1955. He and his coworkers discovered the line hexatic phase in the phase diagram of the concentrated long fragment DNA solutions. The line hexatic mesophase appears to be the preferred packing form of long DNA in bacteriophages. He is the author of more than two hundred scientific papers and a coeditor of books: "Electrostatic Effects in Soft Matter" (Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute, Les Houches, France, 1–13 October 2000, Series: NATO Science Series II: Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry, Vol. 46 ), together with Christian Holm and Patrick Kekicheff and "Electrostatics of Soft and Disordered Matter" (Pan Stanford Publishing, March 31, 2014) with David S. Dean, Jure Dobnikar and Ali Naji. Together with D. Harries, J. DeRouchey, H. H. Strey, and V. A. Parsegian, he coauthored the chapter "Interactions in Macromolecular Complexes Used as Nonviral Vectors for Gene Delivery", in the leading textbook of gene therapy: "Gene Therapy: Therapeutic Mechanisms and Strategies", N. Smyth – Templeton, Marcel Dekker, New York (2008), Third Edition. Rudolf Podgornik was Professor emeritus at the Physics Department, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana. In the past he was professor of physics at the Physics Department, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana and professor of biophysics at the School of medicine, University of Ljubljana. He was also Chair professor at the School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), Beijing and adjunct professor at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Sciences (KITS) at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing and at the Wenzhou Institute of the UCAS (WIUCAS). He was the former head of the research program Biophysics of polymers, membranes, gels, colloids and cells, financially supported by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency (ARIS) and a Scientist emeritus at the Theoretical Physics Department of the Jozef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana. Until 2010 he was an Adjunct researcher at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD. From 2011 to 2016 he was also adjunct professor at the Physics Department, University of Massachusetts, Amherst and from 2013 to 2017 an adjunct professor at the Materials Science & Engineering Department at the Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland. He was a former coeditor-in-chief of the Journal of Biological Physics, published by Springer, a former member of the Editorial board of the journal Physical Review E published by the American Physical Society and of the journal Scientific Reports published by Nature-Springer and a former Advisory Editor of the European Biophysics Journal (EBJ) published by Springer Nature on behalf of the European Biophysical Societies Association (EBSA). He spent several terms as a panel member of the 'Starting grants panel of the 'European Research Council' established by the 'European commission'. Podgornik died on 28 December 2024, at the age of 69.
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