About the Lab
The Computational Biophysics lab focuses on various topics in biological physics, an area that is highly interdisciplinary in nature. We use state-of-the-art computational tools to investigate the molecular structure, dynamics, and fucntion of biomolecules. We extensively use the physics-based Molecular Dynamics simulation technique, which has become an indispensable tool to computationally investigate molecular interactions and dynamics that complement a variety of physics and biophysics experiments. Such computer simulations are useful in many research topics, ranging from biomolecular interactions and drug discovery through in-silico screening to functionalization and interactions of solid-state nanomaterial such as graphene. Current major projects in our lab include dynamics and membrane interactions of viral proteins such as Ebola and Marburg virus proteins VP40 and the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, and identification of novel antimicrobial compounds against antibiotic resistant pathogens. We collaborate with experimental labs in both academia and industry for coupling the theoretical and computational investigations with various biophysical experiments.
The research in the lab has been supported by funding from various funding agencies such as NSF, NIH, and industry partners.
