The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.
This award will support a twenty-two-month research fellowship by Dr. Sylvia E. McLain to work with Dr. Alan K. Soper at Rutherford Appelton Laboratory in the United Kingdom
The focus of this project is to study the local structure of interactions between amino acids and water in aqueous solution, with an emphasis on hydrogen bonding. Neutron diffraction, augmented where possible with hydrogen and nitrogen isotope labeling, is used to determine the hydrogen bonding in these systems. In addition, the diffraction results are analyzed with a computer simulation models to enable a three dimensional description of the hydrogen bonding present. This work, hitherto unparalleled, is likely to significantly advance our understanding of how hydrogen bonding in solution drives protein structure and function. This work is performed in collaboration with Dr. A. K. Soper, Disordered Materials group leader, at the ISIS neutron spallation source located at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the United Kingdom.
