Faculty Researchers
The Biophysics, Biochemistry and Chemical Biology division of the Chemistry and Chemical Biology department is focused on elucidating the mechanisms of energy conversion and ion transport, capture, detection, folding and stability of proteins, developing enzymatic biosyntheses in vitro and designing functional aptamers as diagnostics and therapeutics. Our faculty are developing advanced spectroscopic (multi-frequency multi-dimensional pulsed EPR, solid-state and solution NMR, visible-NIR, fluorescence, FTIR and rapid kinetics), computational (quantum mechanical, molecular dynamics and bioinformatics), small-angle X-ray scattering, fluctuation microscopy, fluorescence lifetime and PALM/STORM imaging, pressure perturbation calorimetry, protein biochemistry, molecular biology, microbial engineering, affinity capture and detection, nucleic-acid based molecular programming and pressure based mapping techniques. Research projects are focused on the discovery of hyperstable proteins for industrial, agricultural and health-related applications, development of enzymatic syntheses of next-generation therapeutics, biopolymers and materials, synthesis of functional DNA/RNA aptamers, elucidation of the molecular mechanism of biological solar energy conversion and the development of bio-inspired artificial photosynthetic devices for solar fuels production, design of nanostructures for energy harvesting, diagnostics and drug therapies, understanding the mechanisms of ion transport, energy production, cell state transitions and cellular responses to stresses, pressure effects on proteins and protein folding and the structure and dynamics of proteins in disease.
Related Centers and Constellations
- Baruch ’60 Center for Biochemical Solar Energy Research
- Center for Biocatalysis and Bioprocessing, Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies
- Biocomputation and Bioinformatics Constellation
- Biocatalysis and Metabolic Engineering Constellation
- Center for Computational Innovations
- Center for Future Energy Systems
