Collaborative Research: Ordering Processes in Water, Aqueous Solutions, and Water-Biomolecule Systems

合作研究：水、水溶液和水-生物分子系统的排序过程

• 批准号: 0910615
• 负责人: Peter Rossky
• 金额: $ 42万
• 依托单位: University of Texas at Austin
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-15 至 2013-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0910615&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Ordering; Processes; Water

This award by the Experimental Physical Chemistry Program supports the collaborative efforts of Pablo G. Debenedetti (Princeton University),C. Austen Angell (Arizona State University), Peter Rossky (University of Texas at Austin), and H. Eugene Stanley (Boston University) in understanding cooperative phenomena in water and aqueous solutions. This project will investigate how solvent organization and structure affects cooperative processes occurring over microscopic (e.g., protein folding), mesoscopic (e.g., fibrilization), or macroscopic (e.g., phase transitions) length scales, and explore whether there exist common features or principles across a broad range of these cooperative transitions. This interdisciplinary collaboration will include a novel experimental approach to study the energetics and kinetics of protein folding (and other ordering phenomena) using non-crystallizing but non-perturbing solvents; computer simulations of phase transitions in two-scale spherically-symmetric model systems that exhibit water-like dynamics and solvation thermodynamics; theoretical and computational investigations of protein phase diagrams and directed evolution using water-explicit lattice models; and computational studies of the emergence of molecular mobility upon hydration of protein powders. An improved understanding of the role of water and co-solutes on cooperative processes and molecular order has far-reaching consequences for directed self-assembly of advanced materials and the molecular basis of life processes, including metabolic control of gene expression, protein folding (and misfolding in disease states) and the long-term preservation and storage of natural tissues and materials. The proposed work will also provide outstanding opportunities for undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers to integrate experiment and theory and work in a team at the interface of chemistry and biology.

实验物理化学计划的这一奖项支持了巴勃罗G. Debenedetti（Princeton University），C. Austen Angell（亚利桑那州立大学）、Peter Rossky（德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校）和H.尤金斯坦利（波士顿大学）在理解水和水溶液中的合作现象。本项目将研究溶剂的组织和结构如何影响微观（例如，蛋白质折叠），介观（例如，原纤化），或宏观的（例如，相变）的长度尺度，并探讨是否存在共同的特点或原则，在这些合作过渡的广泛范围。这种跨学科的合作将包括一种新的实验方法来研究蛋白质折叠的能量学和动力学（和其他有序现象）使用非结晶但非扰动的溶剂;计算机模拟的相变在两个规模的球对称模型系统，表现出水一样的动力学和溶剂化热力学;蛋白质相图的理论和计算研究以及使用水显式晶格模型的定向进化;以及对蛋白质粉末水合后分子流动性出现的计算研究。对水和共溶质在协同过程和分子有序中的作用的更好理解对于先进材料的定向自组装和生命过程的分子基础具有深远的影响，包括基因表达的代谢控制，蛋白质折叠（和疾病状态下的错误折叠）以及天然组织和材料的长期保存和储存。拟议的工作还将为本科生，研究生和博士后研究人员提供出色的机会，将实验和理论相结合，并在化学和生物学的接口团队工作。