Information about structures of biological molecules has often been used effectively to gain understanding of their functions. Biological function also involves dynamic processes, however, which are not amenable to study by many techniques used to determined equilibrium structural properties. Dynamics of biological systems are often studied by optical spectroscopy because optical spectra can be measured very rapidly. Absorption spectra are not sensitive to many structural changes, however, so it is often difficult to combine structural and dynamic information about biological processes. We have developed a technique which is very useful for linking this gap. This technique allows us to measure circular dichroism (CD) spectra, which are sensitive to structural properties of biomolecules, with nanosecond time resolution. The technique has been demonstrated effectively in a variety of nanosecond time scale studies. We now plan to extend the capabilities of the measurements to a broader spectral range and to better time resolution. We also plan to apply these measurements to the study of a variety of biologically interesting processes. These include ligand dissociation reactions in myoglobin and hemoglobin, studies of photolysis intermediates in bacteriorhodopsin, and studies of protein folding processes.
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