2024
2024-02-15 – Maria Mills, Ph.D. – Magnetic tweezers investigations of the type IA topoisomerase of Mycobacterium smegmatis (more…)
2024-03-21 – Tom Brett, Ph.D. – Using structural and biophysical tools to understand TREM2-ligand interactions in Alzheimer’s disease (more…)
2024-05-16 – Monika Bambouskova, Ph.D. – TBA (more…)
2023
2023-12-07 – Dr. Jay Ponder, Ph.D. – Prediction of Binding Free Energies – Are We There Yet? A 30+ Year Saga (more…)
2023-01-14 – Jennifer Wang, Ph.D. – Making and Breaking Centrosomes (more…)
2023-08-17 – Baron Chanda, Ph.D. – Probing allostery in ion channels at single molecule resolution (more…)
2020
2020-01-14 – Amy Gladfelter, Ph.D. – How cytosol is patterned in time and space (more…)
2020-02-11 – Janice Robertson, Ph.D. – Driving Forces of Membrane Protein Assembly in Membranes (more…)
2020-04-21 – Gaya Amarasinghe, Ph.D. – TBD (more…)
2020-04-14 – Matthew Lew, Ph.D. – TBD (more…)
2019
2019-04-09 – Eric Galburt, Ph.D. – Biophysical Mechanisms of Transcription Initiation (more…)
2019-03-12 – Jennifer Alexander-Brett, M.D., Ph.D. – Insights into non-classical cytokine secretion in airway disease (more…)
2019-10-10 – Yao Chen, Ph.D. – Unexpected Lessons on Neuromodulator Action from Imaging Biochemical Signals (more…)
2019-11-19 – Wayland Cheng, Ph.D. – Lipid modulation of ion channels: in search of functionally important binding sites (more…)
2018
2018-02-06 – Daved Fremont, Ph.D. – Much Ado about Viral Immune Invasion (more…)
2018-03-13 – Kathleen Hall, Ph.D. – From secondary structure to tertiary structure: RNA needs ions (more…)
2018-04-10 – Michael Gross, Ph.D. – Role of Mass Spectrometry in Biophysics and Structural Biology (more…)
2018-10-09 – Scott Hultgren, Ph.D. – Urinary tract infection complexity reveals blueprint for antibiotic-sparing therapeutics (more…)
2018-09-11 – Alexander Barnes, Ph.D. – Inventing technology for atomic resolution structural biology in a cellular context for HIV cure research (more…)
2018-12-11 – Gary Patti, Ph.D. – Location, location, location: reprogramming metabolism with localized redox reactions (more…)
2017
2017-01-10 – Alex Evers, Ph.D. – Using photo-crosslinking, click chemistry, and mass spectrometry to map steroid binding sites on membrane proteins (more…)
2017-02-07 – Rui Zhang, Ph.D. – Mechanistic Origin of Microtubule Dynamic Instability Revealed by High-resolution Cryo-EM (more…)
2017-03-14 – Linda Pike, Ph.D. – Allostery in the EGF Receptor (more…)
2017-04-11 – Timothy Lohman, Ph.D. – How does a helicase motor unwind DNA? (more…)
2017-09-12 – Andrea Soranno, Ph.D. – Single-molecule spectroscopy of intrinsically disordered proteins (more…)
2017-10-10 – Shankar Mukherji, Ph.D. – The statistical physics of organelle biogenesis (more…)
2017-12-12 – Meredith Jackrel, Ph.D. – Re-engineering a prion disaggregase, Hsp104, to counter protein-misfolding disorders (more…)
2016
2016-01-12 – Jay Ponder – Computational Modeling of Ligand Binding: Current Status and Future Prospects
2016-02-09 – David Piston – Quantitative Microscopy of Mechanisms Underlying Hormone Secretion
2016-03-08 – Steven George – Vascularizing Engineered (cardiac and tumor) Tissue in vitro
2016-04-12 – Michael Greenberg – Mechanosensing by Myosin Molecular Motors
2016-05-11 – Patricia Clark – University of Notre Dame – Translation Rate Effects on Protein Maturation
2016-10-11 – Chris Lingle, Ph.D. – Defining Stoichiometry of Regulatory Subunits in Single BK Channels (more…)
2016-12-13 – Tao Ju, Ph.D. – Protein Modeling from Cryo-EM DensityMaps Using Geometric Skeletons (more…)
2015
Rohit Pappu – 2015-01-13 – Form & Functions of Intrinsically Disordered Proteins Inferred from Physical Principles
Ron Bose – 2015-02-10 – Probing the Structure of Tyrosine Kinases with Mass Spectrometry
Weikai Li – 2015-03-10 – How Warfarin Works: Blocking the Redox Shift of a Redox Enzyme in ER Membrane
Philip Bayly – 2015-04-14 – Making Waves: The Mechanics of Cilia and Flagella
Joseph Jez – 2015-09-18 – Structural Biology of Plant Hormone Controls
Jiamin Cui – 2015-10-13 – The Slow Potassium Channel in the Heart: Activation Mechanisms and a Drug Target
Peter Burgers – 2015-11-10 – How to Get Rid of Ribonucleotides in Our Genomes
2014
Hani Zaher – 1/14/14 – Atypical Decoding Events on the Ribosome
Rob Mitra – 2/11/14 – Predicting Noise in Gene Expression at a Genome-wide Scale
Roberto Galletto – 3/11/14 – Rap1 Can Bind dsDNA in Multiple Binding Modes
Peng Yuan – 4/8/14 – Molecular Mechanisms of SLO K+ Channel Gating
Kristen Naegle – 5/13/14 – Identifying How Tyrosine Phosphorylation Shapes Dynamic Cell Signaling Processes
Colin Nichols – 9/9/14 – Chasing the Next Frontier: Ion Channel Structural Dynamics by FRET
Greg Bowman – 10/14/14 – Embracing Protein Flexibility Provides New Opportunities for Drug Design
Tom Ellenberger – 11/14/14 – poly-(ADP-ribose) Metabolism and Cancer Therapeutics
2013
Ram Dixit – 1/8/13 – How a Kinesin Contributes to Plant Cell Wall Assembly
Gaya Amarasinghe – 2/19/13 – Filovirus Immune Evasion Mechanisms
Thomas Brett – 3/12/13 – Molecular Mechanisms of Chronic Lung Disease
Mikhail Berezin – 4/9/13 – Optical Contrast Agents: From Synthesis to in vivo Imaging
Alessandro Vindigni – 5/14/13 – Replication Fork Dynamics Under Genotoxic Stress
Alexander Barnes – 10/8/13 – Dynamic Nuclear Polarization NMR for Membrane Protein Ligand Structure
Jon Silva – 11/12/13 – Multiscale Integration: Predicting How Ion Channel Conformations Shape Cell Electrophysiology
2012
Jianmin Cui – 1/10/12 – Modulation of KV7.1 Channels by the Membrane Lipid PIP2
Paul Hruz – 2/14/12 – Elucidation of the Molecular Mechanisms of Facilitative Glucose Transport: Simple as PI
Jan Bieschke – 3/13/12 – Remodeling Amyloid Formation
John Heuser – 4/10/12 – The Holy Grail: How to Make Electron Micrographs as “Natural” and “Lifelike” as Possible…a Lifelong Struggle
Tomasz Heyduk – 5/8/12 – Saint Louis University – Basic Sciences and Cancer Center – Yin-Yang of Transcription Initiation and Biosensors
Kristen Naegle – 10/9/12 – The Role of Phosphorylation in Protein Structure and Function
CANCELLED
Rob Mitra – 11/13/12 – Predicting Noise in Gene Expression
CANCELLED
Yan Mei Wang – 12/11/12 – Single-Molecule Imaging, From New Methods to Intraflagellar Transport and Photosynthesis
2011
Cynthia Lo – 1/11/11 – Effect of Biomolecular Structure on Energy Transfer Processes in Photosynthetic Light Harvesting Complexes, and Implications for Designing Bio-Hybrid Solar Cells
Bob Blankenship – 2/8/11 – Photosynthetic Antenna Systems: Where Light Interfaces with Biology fro Energy Storage
Niraj Tolia – 3/15/11 – Structural Basis and Mechanism for Receptor Recognition by the Plasmodium EBL Family
Chris Lingle – 4/12/11 – Probing BK Channel Central Cavity Properties
Rohit Pappu – 5/10/11 – Phase Behavior of Intrinsically Disordered Proteins and Implications for Molecular Recognition
Weikai Li – 9/13/11 – Structure and Function of Membrane Embedded Enzymes Supporting Blood Coagulation
Paul Schlesinger – 10/11/11 – BAX3
Barak Cohen – 11/8/11 – Physical Models of cis-Regulation
Sam Wickline – 12/13/11 – Is Nanomedicine REALLY Coming to a Clinic Near You?
2010
Joseph Jez – 1/12/10 – Donald Danforth Plant Science Center – Structure, Function, and Evolution of ATP-Dependent Peptide Ligases
Daved Fremont – 2/9/10 – Biophysical Hide and Seek
Carl Frieden – 3/16/10 – The apoE Family of Lipoproteins
Anders Carlsson – 4/13/10 – The Nonlinear Dynamics of Actin Polymerization
Gary D. Stormo – 5/11/10 – Protein-DNA Interaction Specificity: Measurements and Models
Tim Lohman – 10/12/10 – Mechanisms of DNA Binding, Translocation and Unwinding by RecBCD and RecBC Helicases
Kathleen Hall – 11/9/10 – Coevolution of RNA and U1A/U2B Proteins
Jeffrey Henderson – 12/7/10 – Bacterial Iron Uptake Mechanisms in Infection Pathogenesis
2009
Jim Havranek – 2/10/09 – Modeling and Design of Protein-DNA Interfaces
Elliot Elson – 3/10/09 – Fluctuations in Mesoscopic Non-Equilibrium Steady State Systems
Eric Galburt – 4/7/09 – Single Molecule Transcription by RNA Polymerase II
Roberto Galletto – 5/5/09 – Pif the Magic Helicase
Tom Smith – 9/8/09 – Donald Danforth Plant Science Center – Glutamate Dehydrogenase: Structure, Evolution, Regulation, and Role in Insulin
Younan Xia – 10/13/09 – Putting Nanomaterials to Work for Biomedical Research
Jim Huettner – 11/10/09 – Glutamate Receptor Regulation by Lipid-Derived Modulators
2008
Rafi Kopan – 2/12/08 – Why Should Biophysicists Care About Notch Biology?
Yoram Rudy – 3/4/08 – Computational Biology and Noninvasive Imaging of Cardiac Arrhythmia
Rohit Pappu – 4/1/08 – Nucleation and Oligomerization in Polyglutamine Aggregation
John Cooper – 5/6/08 – Molecular Analysis of Actin Assembly at Membranes
Colin Nichols – 9/16/08 – K Channel Molecular Biophysics
Ram Dixit – 10/14/08 – Dynamics and Organization of the Plant Cortical Microtubule Array: From Single Molecules to Whole Cells
Yoram Rudy – 11/4/08 – Computational Biology and Noninvasive Imaging of Cardiac Arrhythmia
Katherine Henzler-Wildman – 12/9/08 – Animating the Transport Cycle: The Role of Protein Dynamics in Multidrug Resistance Activity of EmrE
2007
Joseph Ackerman – 2/6/07 – Diffusion-Sensitive Magnetic Resonance in Vivo: Many Questions – Some Answers
Joshua Maurer – 3/6/07 – Progress Towards Ion Channel Biosensors: Bacterial Cyclic Nucleotide Gated Ion Channels
Rohit Pappu – 4/3/07 – Biophysical Studies of Polyglutamine Aggregation
Nathan Baker – 5/1/07 – Computational Methods for Biomolecular Solvation
Paul Schlesinger – 9/4/07 – Membranes: Barrier/Gateway of Eukaryotic Cells
Lihong Wang – 10/2/07 – High-resolution Photoacoustic Imaging
Barak Cohen – 11/6/07 – A Synthetic System for Deciphering cis-Regulatory
Chris Lingle – 12/4/07 – BK Channel Inactivation: Biophysics Provides Physiological Insights
2006
Robert Mecham – 1/10/06 – Elastin: Nature’s rubber-like protein
Joseph Roti Roti – 2/7/06 – Changes in Nuclear Protein Interactions in Response to Ionizing and Heat Shock that can be Exploited for Therapeutic Gain
Timothy Lohman – 3/7/06 – Mechanisms of DNA Unwinding and Translocation by DNA Helicases
Paul Schlesinger – 4/4/06 – Programming a Pore: The Biophysics of Initiating Apoptosis
Jacob Schaefer – 5/2/06 – Analysis of Photorespiration in Intact Soybean Leaves by in vivo 13CO2 Labeling and Solid-state NMR Detection
Tom Ellenberger – 9/5/06 – Substrate Mimicry and Regulation of the Histone Deacetylase Sir2
Yan Mei Wang – 10/3/06 – Single Molecule Measurements of Repressor Protein 1D Diffusion on DNA
David Sept – 11/7/06 – Molecular Mechanism and Allosteric Effects of Microtubule Drugs
Peter Chivers – 12/5/06 – Nickel Transporters and Transcriptional Regulators
2005
John-Stephen Taylor – 2/8/05 – Structural and Mechanistic Probes of DNA Photoproduct Bypass by Replicative and DNA Damage Bypass Polymersases
Greg Grant – 3/8/05 – An Allostery Story: Probing Allostery with Hybrid Oligomers, Crystal Structure, and FRET
Karen Wooley – 4/5/05 – Synthetic Nanostructures Designed for Selective Biological Interactions
Karen Wooley – 9/6/05 – Fundamental Designs and Rigorous Characterization for the Development of Synthetic Nanomaterials
Mark Miller – 10/4/05 – Multi-photon Imaging of Lymphoid Tissue Dynamics
Jin-Yu Shao – 11/8/05 – Biological Nanotube Formation During Leukocyte Rolling on the Endothelium
Enrico Di Cera – 12/6/05 – Thrombin Allostery
2004
Jay Ponder – 1/13/04 – A Polarizable Force Field for Protein Modeling
Ralf Wessel – 2/10/04 – Biophysics of Visual Motion Analysis
Victor Guallar – 3/9/04 – Looking into Quantum Effects in Nature
David Cistola – 4/10/04 – Cooperativity and Selectivity in Ligand-protein Recognition
Carl Frieden – 10/19/04 – Probing Protein Dynamics with Fluorescence Methods
Jan Amend – 11/16/04 – Energy-yields from Geochemistry and Energy-demands by Microorganisms
Jiamin Cui – 12/7/04 – Mechanism of Ca2+-activated K+ Channel (BKca) Activation
2003
Garland Marshall – 1/21/03 – Molecular Recognition in Vision – Questions Arising from Studying the Interactions between Rhodopsin and Transducin
Jeff Lichtman – 2/18/03 – Synaptic Reorganization of the Developing Nervous System: Studies in Fluorescent Mice
Sandor Kovacs – 3/18/03 – How the Heart Works When it Fills
Daved Fremont – 4/22/03 – Structural Mechanisms of Viral Immune Evasion
Kathleen Hall – 9/16/03 – If It Moves, It Must Be Important. Molecules in Motion
John Cooper – 10/14/03 – Capping of Actin Filaments: Molecular Mechanism and Implications for Actin Polymerization
Peter Chivers – 11/11/03 – What Happens When Bacteria Have Nickels in the Pockets of Their NikRs?
Elliot Elson – 12/9/03 – Regulation of Force in Reconstituted Tissues
2002
Tom Smith – 1/15/02 – Danforth Plant Science Center – Structure of Glutamate Dehydrogenase
Michael Gross – 2/12/02 – Mass Spectrometry for N/D Exchange in Proteins: Chapter Two in Proteomics?
Joseph Ackerman – 3/19/02 – Water: The ‘Ultimate’ BioMolecule – Or Why MRI Works and Is Interesting
Anders Carlsson – 4/16/02 – Modeling the Growth of Branched Actin Networks
Nathan Baker – 9/24/02 – Computational Electrostatics: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
George Gokel – 10/22/02 – Alkali Metal Cation-pi Interactions with the Sidechain Arenes of Phenylalanine, Tyrosine, and Tryptophan
Gary Stormo – 11/19/02 – Prospects for a DNA-Protein Recognition Code
Jim Bann – 12/17/02 – Folding of PapD: A Chaperone Within a Chaperone?
2001
Dewey Holten – 1/23/01 – Mechanisms of the Primary Processes in Mutant Photosynthetic Reaction Centers
Garland Marshall – 2/13/01 – Activation of GPCRs: Reconciling Mutational and Experimental Data
Gabriel Waksman – 3/6/01 – Protein Export in Bacteria: Structural and Functional Insights
Jim Huettner – 4/3/01 – Kainate Receptor Diversity and Function
Tim Lohman – 5/1/01 – Helicase-catalyzed DNA Unwinding
Gary Ackers – 9/11/01 – New Understanding of How Hemoglobin Cooperativity Works
David Sept – 10/9/01 – Computer Simulations of Actin: From Molecular Interactions to Filament Dynamics
Bill Wikoff – 11/6/01
Rohit Pappu – 12/4/01 – Made to Order: On the Presence of Preferred Structures in Protein Unfolded States and Implications for Protein Folding
2000
Elliot Elson – 1/18/00 – Why Study Protein Folding (or anything else) at the Level of Single Molecules?
*Enrico Gratton – 4/18/00 – University of Illinois, Urbana, IL – Fluorescence and Biological Molecules
*Robert M. Clegg – 5/9/00 – University of Illinois, Urbana, IL – What Pressure Can Tell Us About Transcription
and Polymerase
Jacob Schaefer – 9/12/00 – REDOR NMR of Biological Solids: Protein Binding Sites to Bacterial Cell Walls
David Cistola – 10/17/00 – Protein Flexibility and Function: Millisecond Backbone Motions Linked to Ligand Binding
Christopher Lingle – 11/14/00 – Regulation of Ca2+- and Voltage-activated K+ Channels by Accessory Subunits
Carl Frieden – 12/12/00 – The Mechanism of Folding of (mostly) all β-sheet Proteins
1999
Kathleen Hall – 9/14/99 – Dynamics of RNA in Solution and in Simulation
Gary Stormo – 10/12/99 – Protein-DNA Specificity in Pattern Recognition Algorithms
Jay Ponder – 11/9/99 – Modeling Biomolecular Structure at Different Levels of Resolution
Jeff Skolnick – 12/7/99 – Center for Emerging Technology – Simulations of the Folding of the GCN4 Leucine Zipper
1998
Anders Carlsson – 2/17/98 – Modeling Biomolecular Materials
*Douglas Lauffenberger – 3/17/98 – MIT – Operation of Autocrine Signaling Loops
*Kenneth P. Murphy – 4/7/98 – University of Iowa – Model Compounds and Protein Stability
*Ronald T. Raines – 5/5/98 – University of Wisconsin – Collagen: The Subtlety of Stability
*Barry Honig – 9/22/98 – Columbia University – Applications of the Poisson-Boltzmann Equation to Nucleic Acids, Membranes and Proteins: Success and Failure
Daved Fremont – 11/17/98 – Work in Progress
1997
Peter von Hippel – 3/11/97 – University of Oregon – Macromolecular Interactions in DNA Replication
Timothy M. Lohman – 4/8/97 – How Do DNA Helicases Unwind DNA?
Kathleen Hall – 5/6/97 – RNA Recognition by Large Protein Ligands
Sean Eddy – 6/3/97 – Computational RNA Structure Prediction
Elliot Elson – 9/9/97 – Mechanics of Reconstituted Model Tissues
*Lynne Regan – 10/14/97 – Yale University – Protein Folding Pathways and Mutations that Perturb Them: A Work in Progress
*Paul Janmey – 11/11/97 – Harvard Medical School – Mechanical and Electrostatic Forces in Cell Biology
*Watt W. Webb – 12/9/97 – Cornell University – A Biophysical Evening of Infrared into Ultraviolet
1996
Carl Frieden – 9/10/96 – Intermediates in Protein Folding
Al Holtzer – 10/15/96 – The Population of Conformational States and the Kinetics of Interconversion in Unfolding Equilibria of a Pseudo-wild Type GCN4 Leucine Zipper
*Julie Forman-Kay – 11/12/96 – University of Toronto – Structural and Dynamic Characterization of Unfolded States of an SH3 Domain using NMR Methods
Jay Ponder – 12/10/96
1995
James Miller – 1/9/95 – Anisotropic Elastic Properties of Myocardium and Echocardiography
David Kennell – 2/6/95 – The Processive Reaction Mechanism of Ribonuclease II
Douglas Covey – 3/13/95 – Novel Modulators of GABAA Receptor Function
George Broze – 4/3/95 – Tissue Factor Pathway Inhibitor
Alex Evers – 5/1/95 – Binding of Volatile Anesthetics to Isolated Proteins: 19F-NMR and Photoaffinity Labeling Studies
Gabriel Waksman – 6/5/95 – Structural Basis for Peptide Binding Specificity of SH2 Domains
1994
Jim Bashkin – 1/10/94 – The Design of Synthetic Ribozymes
Gary Ackers – 2/7/94 – Dissecting the λ cI Repressor/Operator System of Gene Control: Experimental Statistical Mechanics
David States – 3/7/94 – Evolution of Protein Structure
Garland Marshall – 4/4/94 – In Search of the Molten Helix
Timothy Lohman – 5/2/94
George Gokel – 6/6/94 – Self-assembly in Supramolecular Systems
Joseph Ackerman – 9/12/94 – Magnetic Resonance Approaches to Biophysics in Living Systems
Charles Zorumski – 10/3/94 – Retrograde Messenger and Hippocampal Synaptic Plasticity
Richard Gross – 11/7/94 – The Biophysical Basis Underlying the Coupling of Sugar and Lipid Metabolism
Linda Kurz – 12/5/94 – The Catalytic Strategy of Citrate Synthase
1993
*Eaton E. Lattman – 1/11/93 – Johns Hopkins Univ. – Protein Structures as a Probe of Protein Structure
Ellen Li – 2/1/93 – A Study of Retinoid Binding Proteins Using Florescence and NMR Spectroscopy
Jake Schaefer – 3/8/93 – Binding Sites of Proteins by Solids NMR
John Taylor – 4/5/93 – Multiplicative Site-directed Mutagenesis. New Approach to the Study of Protein-Protein Interactions and Assembly
Himadri Pakrasi – 5/3/93 – Photosystem I and II: Two Reaction Center Complexes in Plants and Cyano-bacteria
Jay Ponder – 6/7/93
Al Holtzer – 9/13/93 – Thermodynamics and Kinetics of Folding in Coiled-Coiled Proteins
Chris Lingle – 10/4/93 – Calcium Activated Potassium Channels
Joe Steinbach – 11/1/93 – Macroscopic and Microscopics of Protein Function
Jim Huettner – 12/6/93 – Glutamate Receptor Channels: Localization and Functional Properties