Skip to ContentSkip to Navigation
About us Latest news News News articles

Resolving local structures and dynamics of proteins with 2D IR spectroscopy

21 September 2012

PhD ceremony: Mr. S. Roy, 11.00 uur, Academiegebouw, Broerstraat 5, Groningen

Dissertation: Resolving local structures and dynamics of proteins with 2D IR spectroscopy

Promotor(s): prof. J. Knoester

Faculty: Mathematics and Natural Sciences

Proteins are essential components of a living system as they perform many mechanical and bio-chemical functions that are needed for survival. For example, elastin provides elasticity and enzymes function as catalysts to activate most of the reactions in the living system.

A protein spontaneously folds into the most stable structure with minimum free energy, which is known as protein folding. It is important to understand how proteins fold, as folding into wrong structures leads to Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson's disease, type II diabetes, and cancer. To investigate functions and folding of proteins one needs to know their structures.

Resolving protein structure at different steps of bio-chemical reactions or in a folding process is a great challenge. This is because these phenomena happen in a wide range of time scales which can be from 1/1000000000000000 of seconds (femtoseconds) to seconds. We have developed methodologies that allow to resolve proteins structures which are involved in ultrafast interconversions (time scale ~100000 femtoseconds). This is done by combining theories and computations with experiments that are performed using infrared lasers to probe molecular vibrations. The methodologies can be used to identify different intermediates and the time scales at which they interconvert in a reaction/folding pathway.

Last modified:13 March 2020 12.59 a.m.
Share this Facebook LinkedIn
View this page in: Nederlands

More news

  • 17 July 2025

    Veni-grants for eleven UG researchers

    The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a Veni grant of up to €320,000 each to eleven researchers of the University of Groningen and the UMCG: Quentin Changeat, Wen Wu, Femke Cnossen, Stacey Copeland, Bart Danon, Gesa Kübek, Hannah Laurens, Adi...

  • 14 July 2025

    ERC Proof of Concept grant for Kottapalli and Covi

    Professors Ajay Kottapalli and Erika Covi have received Proof of Concept grants from the European Research Council (ERC).

  • 10 July 2025

    Dutch Research Agenda funding for nanomedicine research

    Prof Dr Anna Salvati, Dr Christoffer Åberg and Prof Dr Siewert-Jan Marrink have been granted a National Science Agenda (NWA) funding to further develop life-saving drugs based on nanotechnology with the NanoMedNL consortium.