Mass spectrometry and optical spectroscopy studies to characterize biological molecules in controlled micro-environments

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The correct functioning of biological molecules such as proteins is dependent on molecular properties including structure and stability. My research program is designed to provide a better understanding of the intrinsic properties of biological molecules and of how these properties are influenced by interactions with molecules in the local environment, such as metal ions, other proteins, small ligands and even the ever-present water molecules. The approach we take is to characterize biomolecules and biomolecular complexes in a highly-controlled gas-phase environment. This affords valuable simplification of complex biological systems. We first characterize intrinsic properties of the biomolecule when it is isolated in the gas phase. Then, we determine the effects of relevant molecular interactions by adding in pieces of the local molecular environment, making such as a small number of water molecules. Our experiments combine the analytically powerful techniques of mass spectrometry with an added dimension of laser spectroscopic data.