U.S.-Argentina Cooperative Science Program: Research on theOrigin of Helix Stability

该奖项由美国-阿根廷合作科学计划颁发，支持康奈尔大学的Harold A. Scheraga博士和应用数学研究所（IMASL）的Jorge Vilas博士、阿根廷国家研究委员会（CONICET）、阿根廷。这项工作的主要目的是了解氨基酸序列与小肽在不同pH值和温度下α -螺旋稳定性之间关系的物理起源。该项目将结合两种方法，即分子力学计算和统计力学理论。统计力学结合了分子力学获得的信息，以预测新共肽序列和更复杂系统的最稳定构象。从核磁共振和CD测量中获得的对短肽的大量实验观察将与提出的分析相结合，以提供对导致螺旋稳定性的因素的理解。以及一种可靠的实验电位测试，用于描述多肽和蛋白质。该项目涉及分子和统计力学领域的两位知名专家。* * * / /

This award from the U.S.- Argentina Cooperative Science Program supports research in chemistry to be conducted by Dr. Harold A. Scheraga of Cornell University and Dr. Jorge Vilas of the Institute of Applied Mathematics (IMASL), National Research Council of Argentina (CONICET), Argentina. The main goal of the work is to understand the physical origin of the relationship between the amino-acid sequence and the stability of alpha-helices in small peptides at different pH's and temperatures. The project will combine two approaches, namely molecular mechanics calculations and statistical mechanics theory. Statistical mechanics incorporates the information obtained by molecular mechanics in order to predict the most stable conformations of both new copolypeptide sequences and more complex systems. The numerous experimental observations on short peptides that are available from both NMR and CD measurements will be used in concert with the proposed analysis to provide an understanding of the factors leading to helix stability, and a reliable test of the empirical potentials used to describe peptides and proteins. The project involves two established experts in the field of molecular and statistical mechanics. ***//