Professor Alan Mark
Professor Alan Mark
University of Groningen, Netherlands
Project: Self-organisation in biomolecular systems: Simulating the folding and aggregation of peptides, proteins and lipids
Molecular self-assembly is a basic property of living systems.
Most proteins fold spontaneously and then further self-organise into "biological machines."
Understanding how this occurs is a fundamental theoretical challenge with widespread application.
Using a computer, work will focus on developing methods to simulate the folding and aggregation of peptides, proteins, and lipids.
The aim is to accurately predict the structures of small peptides in solution and to refine crude models of larger molecules (complexes).
This will facilitate the development of peptide-based therapeutics, essential to exploiting the growing volume of genetic information in biology and medicine.
