The first ComSciCon Atlanta was held last week on the Georgia Tech campus. ComSciCon aims to help other graduate students learn novel ways of communicating science to other scientists and to the public. JC and graduate student Curtis Balusek (pictured) presented on VMD Lite as an example of conveying complex dynamical information about biomolecules in an easy-to-understand and visually appealing manner. See more examples of our outreach efforts here.
A joint study led by Raquel Lieberman in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at GT revealed both the structure and stabilizing mechanisms of the protein myocilin, which is present in the trabecular meshwork of the eye. In particular, simulations demonstrated the role of a key disulfide bond in resisting unfolding. See more about the story here and the paper here.
The lab is busy traveling the globe for a variety of meetings, including such beautiful places as Lausanne for a CECAM meeting on Drug Discovery, Paris for an NSF iPoLS meeting, and Santa Fe for a meeting on membranes and membrane proteins. But it’s not just about the vistas but also about spreading the word of all the great science we are doing!
We just closed out another great Computational Biophysics workshop (the 45th in the series running since 2003!) here in Atlanta. The workshop, sponsored by JC’s former lab in Urbana, covered topics ranging from molecular dynamics to whole cell simulations to even DNA origami! We had about 25 participants from around the southeast (and beyond) spend their week here with us. It was exhausting, but fun, and now we look forward to the next time we will host one again.
Curtis and JC’s work on simulating the transporter BtuB in its native outer-membrane environment is now a featured article in the latest issue of Biophysical Journal. Congrats Curtis!
