Date and Time: 21st March 2014 (Friday), 3:00 PM
Venue: J211, Silver Jubilee Building, University of Macau
Abstract
Biomolecules change their conformations when they are placed under mechanical forces. The force response of a molecule is often sensitive to binding by other molecules, providing a highly sensitive way of detecting molecular interaction at a single-molecule level. In this seminar, I will use several recent studies from our laboratory to demonstrate how this mechanical principle can be used to probe protein-DNA and protein-protein interactions and how such experiments produce important new insights into the molecular mechanisms of the biological functions of these interactions.
Biography
Positions
- 2005-2011 Assistant Professor of Physics, National University of Singapore
- 2011-Present Associate Professor of Physics, National University of Singapore
- 2009-Present Principal Investigator, Mechanobiology Institute (MBI) Singapore
- 2010-Present Principal Investigator, NUS Centre for Bioimaging Sciences
- 2009-Present Faculty Fellow, Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research & Technology (SMART)
- 2014-Present Principal Investigator, NUS (Suzhou) Research Institute Academic Qualifications
- PhD in Physics (experimental biophysics), Advisor: Prof. John F. Marko, U. Illinois at Chicago,June, 2005
- PhD in Physics (theoretical physics), Advisor: Prof. Ou-Yang Zhong-can, Inst. of Theor. Phys.of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1998
- MS in physics, Advisor: Prof. Yin-Hai Wang and Hong Zhao, Lanzhou University, China, 1995
- BS in physics, Lanzhou University, China, 1992
Research Interests
My research areas involve investigating micromechanics of DNA, protein, and their interactions, at a single-molecule level using single-molecule force spectroscopy and single-molecule imaging