Abstract
Proteins constantly fluctuate in solution and often populate a variety of different states. The structural fluctuations and conformational transitions of proteins have been realized to be essential for function by recent experiments, such as single-molecule and NMR relaxation dispersion measurements. Yet, the understanding of how dynamics play a role in function, e.g. enzyme catalysis, has remained highly controversial. In this talk, I will show how molecular dynamics simulation can be applied to reveal the complex dynamics of proteins during conformational transitions and function. Furthermore, I will introduce theoretical approaches to highlight the role of dynamics and discuss how the picture obtained by analyzing the dynamics differs from the static mechanism derived from free energy surfaces.
Biography
Toshifumi Mori is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Materials Chemistry and Engineering, Kyushu University. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from Kyoto University in 2010 with Professor Shigeki Kato. He did his postdoc research at Stanford University with Professor Todd J. Martínez, and at University of Wisconsin-Madison with Professor Qiang Cui (who is now in Boston University). He joined the Institute for Molecular Science as an Assistant Professor in 2013, and moved to the current affiliation in 2020. His research is focused on developing and applying statistical mechanics based methods to reveal chemical reactions and functional dynamics of proteins in complex environments.
Seminar Series by the NYU-ECNU Center for Computational Chemistry at NYU Shanghai
This event is open to the NYU Shanghai, NYU, ECNU community and the computational chemistry community.