CAREER: Holistic Approach to the Study of Protein Mechanisms

Rice University的Cecilia Clementi教授获得了CAREER奖的支持，研究蛋白质折叠过程的机制和动力学。新的粗粒度模型正在开发中，它大大减少了需要考虑的相空间的范围。反蒙特卡罗和耗散粒子动力学方法都被用来寻找有效的势能，并为机器人应用开发了一种独特的算法，用于蛋白质景观的运动规划。这项研究对生物科学产生了更广泛的影响。除了研究本身，Clementi教授还参与了计算分子生物学新课程的开发，并参与了一个向当地学校演讲的推广计划。本项目由化学学部的理论与计算化学项目和分子与细胞生物学部的分子生物物理项目支持。

Prof. Cecilia Clementi of Rice University is supported by this CAREER award to study the mechanism and dynamics of the protein folding process. New coarse-grained models are being developed which greatly reduce the extent of the phase space that needs to be considered. Both inverse Monte carlo and dissipative particle dynamics methods are used to seek effective potentials and a unique algorithm developed for robotics applications is used for motion-planning on the protein landscape.The broader impacts of this research are in the biological sciences. Along with the research itself, Prof. Clementi is involved with the development of a new course in computational molecular biology and an outreach program involving presentations to local schools.This project is supported by the Theoretical and Computational Chemistry program in the Division of Chemistry and the Molecular Biophysics program in the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biology.