WFU Physics Colloquium

TIME: Tuesday February 2 at 4 PM

PLACE: George P. Williams, Jr. Lecture Hall, (Olin 101)

In the post-genomic era, where we have identified and characterized many of the major players in the cell, it is now becoming increasingly clear that we must turn our focus towards how each of these players assemble and interact with one another in the cell to yield biological functions. In my studies, I use coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations to understand RNA folding mechanisms, as well as how they assemble with proteins to form complex protein-RNA machines. I will begin by introducing an emerging view of RNA folding that has been developing for the past 10-15 years that show that RNA folding is far more complex than one might intuitively think. Then, I will discuss my simulations of RNA pseudoknots within the framework of this emerging view. Finally, I will switch gears a bit and discuss my preliminary but exciting results in GPU-based MD simulations of ribosome assembly.