In this award, funded by the Chemical Structure, Dynamics and Mechanism Program, Prof. Andrei Tokmakoff of the Chemistry Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his graduate student colleagues will develop ultrafast two-dimensional vibrational spectroscopy and use it in conjunction with nanosecond laser temperature-jumps to characterize the conformations of biomolecules and describe their conformational dynamics. These methods will be used to study the folding of NTL9. New methods for studying DNA G-quadruplexes will be developed.
Besides the broader scientific impacts of the research being supported, the research students working on these projects will gain experience with advanced laser techniques. Prof. Tokmakoff also maintains a Web site(www.mit.edu/~tokmakof/TDQMS/) through which his most recent quantum mechanics course materials are made available. Additional lecture and laboratory course materials are distributed on the MIT OpenCourseWare Web site(http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm/).
