Single-Molecule Biophysical Chemistry Group

Research Interests:

Molecular biophysics, single-molecule biochemistry, enzymology, DNA repair enzymes, protein / DNA interactions, molecular motors, nano-bioscience.

Our major interest is to understand important biological processes at the single-molecule level. Elucidating the functional mechanisms of these processes is essential in understanding the molecular basis of the associated disease processes. Single molecule techniques observe the distributions and time trajectories of individual molecules, information that is lost in the ensemble average, and thus provide valuable insights into the mechanisms of enzyme function.

We are especially interested in biological molecular machines involved in DNA recombination and repair. The goal is to investigate the mechanistic details of these DNA-processing proteins, to explore the regulatory architecture, and to elucidate the general mechanism of protein/DNA interactions.

This research lies at the interface of biology, chemistry and physics, and the tools we use include various single molecule light microscopy and fluorescence techniques, and biochemistry methods. This nano-bioscience approach also involves in developing new physical techniques to detect bio-macromolecular motion with nanometer precision.

Last update: 2007.02.11 @ 12:10 PM