Mechanism of “Biomolecular Machines”

Many biomolecules or biomolecular complexes have been referred to as “biomolecular machines” because they carry out the important machine-like functions of energy and signal transductions. Unlike macroscopic machines, these biomolecular systems can achieve remarkable efficiency in energy transduction and sensitivity/robustness in signal transduction. It’s a fascinating subject to figure out the microscopic properties of these systems that dictate their unique functional characteristics.

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Currently, the specific systems we are interested in include biomolecular motors, pumps and sensory ion channels. Since large-scale structural/allosteric transitions are implicated in many of these systems, developing effective computational methods & strategies (e.g., proper coarse-graining) for understanding the mechanism of such transitions in both model and realistic systems is an important component of our research.

For more information, read our papers and image gallery…