Contact Info
Office 418 Mossman (865-974-3685)
Lab website: https://volweb.utk.edu/~tcalhou2
Lab: SERF 434, 438, 439
Email: trcalhoun@utk.edu
Ph.D. (2010) University of California, Berkeley
Research Statement
Biological membranes are diverse, complex, and dynamic natural environments. The processes mediated by these environments are essential for life and span from molecular transport to protein function. Given the membrane’s role in mediating the movement of molecules into bacterial cells, new approaches to evaluate its impact are essential for the study and advancement of antibiotics. The Calhoun lab’s interdisciplinary research program specializes in the application and advancement of nonlinear spectroscopy and microscopy techniques for the study of a variety of systems, including bacterial membranes. Our current projects aim to directly probe how the complexity of living bacterial membranes impacts the uptake, transport, localization and efflux of small molecules, including antibiotics. To this end, we are employing the nonlinear optical technique, second harmonic scattering, to quantitatively assess how factors such as small molecule structure, environmental species and membrane composition facilitate or hinder the adsorption and internalization of antibiotics by bacteria.
Selected Publications
Facilitating flip-flop: Structural tuning of molecule-membrane interactions in living bacteria
MJ Blake, HB Castillo, AE Curtis, TR Calhoun
Biophysical Journal 122 (10), 1735-1747
Monitoring membranes: The exploration of biological bilayers with second harmonic generation
EF Page, MJ Blake, GA Foley, TR Calhoun
Chemical Physics Reviews 3 (4)
Phosphate ions alter the binding of daptomycin to living bacterial cell surfaces
LN Miller, MJ Blake, EF Page, HB Castillo, TR Calhoun
ACS infectious diseases 7 (11), 3088-3095
Second harmonic generation spectroscopy of membrane probe dynamics in gram-positive bacteria
LN Miller, WT Brewer, JD Williams, EM Fozo, TR Calhoun
Biophysical Journal 117 (8), 1419-1428