CAREER: Physico-Chemical Modeling of Filopodia Initiation, Dynamics, and Spatio-Temporal Regulation

北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校的Garegin Papoian得到了理论和计算化学计划颁发的职业奖的支持，以开展丝足线虫启动和动力学的物理化学建模技术开发的研究。这些介观细胞器的物理化学还不是很清楚。在这项研究中，Papoian和他的团队正在阐明肌动蛋白-细丝束的时间控制自组装的机制，这种组装是由空间局域的机械和化学相互作用之间的耦合驱动的。考虑到调控蛋白的空间局部化，正在开发丝足生长-回缩动力学模型。这项工作通过与基础生物科学的联系产生了广泛的影响，也通过Papoian正在开发的针对高中生和代表性不足的少数民族的几项外联倡议产生了广泛的影响。他还在开发一个在线网络细菌项目，让年轻学生体验尖端研究问题带来的兴奋。

Garegin Papoian of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill is supported by a CAREER award from the Theoretical and Computational Chemistry program to carry out research on the development of a physico-chemical modeling technique for filipodia initiation and dynamics. The physical chemistry of these mesoscopic organelles is not well understood. In this research, Papoian and his group are elucidating the mechanism of the temporally-controlled self-assembly of actin-filament bundles that is driven by coupling among spatially-localized mechanical and chemical interactions. Models of filopodia growth-retraction dynamics are being developed which take into account the spatial localization of regulatory proteins.The work is having a broad impact through its connection to basic biological science, but also through several outreach initiatives to high school students and under-represented minorities that Papoian is developing. He is also developing an online CyberBacteria project which will allow young students to experience the excitement of cutting-edge research problems.