Simulation Studies of Protein Dynamics in Membranes

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

Prof. Douglas Tobias of the University of California, Irvine, is supported by both the Theoretical and Computational Chemistry program within the Division of Chemistry and the Molecular Biophysics program within the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences for research which employs atomistic molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the interplay of the dynamics of proteins, lipids and water in biological membranes. The research involves three projects: (1) continuation and extension of his prior work on MD simulations of solvent effects on membrane proteins and comparison to neutron scattering data; (2) modeling of raft microdomains in lipid bilayers; and (3) molecular dynamics simulations of fluorescence experiments on lipid bilayers with proteins. This work will have a broad impact on the fields of biophysics and physical chemistry of lipid bilayers.