This award supports the purchase an isothermal titration calorimeter (ITC), a differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), and related software and hardware support for data analysis. The instruments are designed for ease of use, repeated operation (rugged design) and rapid throughput. This new generation of calorimeters provides an order of magnitude improvement in sensitivity and baseline reproducibility with small cell volumes. Thermodynamics of biomolecular systems can be directly measured in a model-independent specific method. DSC and ITC directly measure enthalpy, melting temperature and binding constants for biomolecular systems providing accurate measurements of free energy and entropy of the systems. Specific research projects include: (1) thermodynamics of trinucleotide repeat DNA sequences, (2) determination of the heat capacity of DNA duplex formation, (3) binding constant measurements, and (4) thermodynamics of DNA dumbbell molecular wires. Acquisition of these instruments will provide for biophysical chemical research with undergraduates students, biophysical research training of advanced undergraduate students and development and application of new laboratory modules for undergraduate course work in biochemistry and physical chemistry.
