Molecular biophysics and structural biology faculty in BCMB have diverse interests. Current areas of research include structure, function, assembly, and folding of proteins; thermodynamics and dynamics of enzyme–ligand complexes; antibiotic-target interactions; protein-protein interactions; coagulation and fibrinolysis calcium signaling in plant cells; stability and dynamics of biomolecular structures and supramolecular assembly; protein import into chloroplasts; molecular chaperones; molecular modeling; structure-based drug design; structure and functional dynamics of proteins involved in biological electron transfer and immune response; X-ray crystallography of biological molecules; and the application of advanced computational methods to the study of macromolecules.
Researchers in molecular biophysics and structural biology make use of biochemical, biophysical, or computational approaches to understand molecular principles of biological processes.
Faculty
Jerome Baudry
Molecular Modeling; Molecular Biophysics
Elias Fernandez
Protein structure; Signal transduction; X-ray crystallography; Biophysics
Hong Guo
Simulated molecular dynamics of proteins
Elizabeth Howell
Enzymology of dihydrofolate reductase
Nitin Jain
Protein Structure; NMR spectroscopy
Cynthia Peterson
Biophysics; Hydrodynamic techniques
Engin Serpersu
Enzymology; NMR spectroscopy
Tongye Shen
Simulated Molecular Dynamics
Jeremy Smith
Simulated Molecular Dynamics
Courses
Students in our labs often take some of the following courses
1. Core courses (taken by all BCMB graduate students, as well as students from other programs):
- BCMB 511 Advanced Biochemistry: Protein structure, catalysis, binding; membranes
- BCMB 512 Advanced Molecular Biology: Gene regulation, chromatin, RNA
2. Specialized BCMB courses. Popular offerings include:
- BCMB 560 Alternates between X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy Fall/Spring semesters
- BCMB 530 Experimental Design and Analysis: Scientific writing, building and testing hypotheses
- BCMB 513 Cell Biology: Signaling pathways, cell cycle, cytoskeleton, protein trafficking
- BCMB 606 Journal clubs: Structural Biology
- BCMB 615 Special topics: Recent topics: Analytical Techniques in Protein Biochemistry
3. Courses offered by other programs (such as Genome Science and Technology [Analytical Technologies, Genomics, Bioinformatics], Statistics, Microbiology, and many more.
4. Course credit for miscellaneous activities such as departmental seminars (BCMB 601) and colloquia (BCMB 603), first-year lab rotations (BCMB 516) and other ‘Thesis’ (BCMB 500) and ‘Dissertation’ (BCMB 600) activities.