This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This CAREER award will support an integrated research and education program in the field of theoretical biophysics, with interdisciplinary support from the Division of Materials Research, the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosystems, and the Division of Mathematical Sciences. The research component will address addresses the theory of directed and diffusive protein motion, active gels, and DNA target recognition, with emphasis on incorporating polymer elasticity effects into models of protein motion on DNA and crowding and collective effects in protein motion.
The research will have applications in important biological problems such as gene expression, DNA copying, DNA repair, and cell division. It will contribute to the broader effort in the community studying molecular motors to understand diverse motor proteins, and to develop theoretical tools to predict the behavior of systems of interacting proteins. It will also contribute to understanding both the function of motor proteins in crowded cellular environments, and the role of nucleic-acid motors in macromolecular complexes. This work is strongly interdisciplinary, because the research bridges statistical physics, theoretical chemistry, and molecular biophysics.
The education component aims to increase the connection between physics and biology in introductory physics courses at CU-Boulder. Integrating biologically relevant course materials will help students understand that physics is important in many fields, including biology and medicine. The second education aim is to integrate biophysics into the undergraduate physics curriculum at CU-Boulder by developing a biophysics course. The physics department does not currently teach a biophysics course, so this aim will enhance the education of students at CU-Boulder. The proposed education work will be carried out in collaboration with the Physics Education Research group at the University of Colorado to incorporate cutting-edge educational methods and assessment.
NONTECHNICAL SUMMARY This CAREER award will support an integrated research and education program in the field of theoretical biophysics, with interdisciplinary support from the Division of Materials Research, the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosystems, and the Division of Mathematical Sciences. The research component of this award addresses novel problems in theoretical biophysics involving the directed and random motions of proteins and related biomolecular systems.
The research will have applications in important biological problems such as gene expression, DNA copying, DNA repair, and cell division. It will contribute to the broader effort in the community studying molecular motors to understand diverse motor proteins, and to develop theoretical tools to predict the behavior of systems of interacting proteins. It will also contribute to understanding both the function of motor proteins in crowded cellular environments, and the role of nucleic-acid motors in macromolecular complexes. This work is strongly interdisciplinary, because the research bridges statistical physics, theoretical chemistry, and molecular biophysics.
The education component aims to increase the connection between physics and biology in introductory physics courses at CU-Boulder. Integrating biologically relevant course materials will help students understand that physics is important in many fields, including biology and medicine. The second education aim is to integrate biophysics into the undergraduate physics curriculum at CU-Boulder by developing a biophysics course. The physics department does not currently teach a biophysics course, so this aim will enhance the education of students at CU-Boulder. The proposed education work will be carried out in collaboration with the Physics Education Research group at the University of Colorado to incorporate cutting-edge educational methods and assessment.
