The research will connect the highly detailed atomistic views of the interior of biological cells with their overall functional behavior. The ultimate outcome is a model of biological cells based on basic physical principles that can be queried to gain a comprehensive understanding of biological processes across a wide range of scales. The research at interdisciplinary boundaries between physics, chemistry, and biochemistry and between simulation, modeling, and experiment provides unique opportunities for training future generations of scientists. The involvement of undergraduate students is a central theme. Teams of undergraduate students from different disciplines will come together under co-mentorship by a graduate student and postdoctoral researcher to begin first research experiences with a strong interdisciplinary perspective. The involvement of women and underrepresented minorities is a major focus.
Cellular environments consist of dense, heterogeneous solutions of biomolecules where interactions are unavoidable yet molecules have to remain fluid and in their native states to carry out biological function. Computer simulations are combined with spectroscopic experiments to characterize the effects of crowding on biomolecular dynamics, stability, and diffusive properties. Dense protein solutions are studied along with systems involving membranes, chromosomal DNA structures, and metabolites. The focus of this project is on characterizing the transient interactions that occur under such conditions and how they affect biomolecular behavior. That insight will allow the construction of predictive models that can relate protein chemistry to dynamic and diffusive behavior, and ultimately biological function, under in vivo conditions.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
