Physics
Colloquium
Physics of
Protein-protein Interactions for Future Drug
Discovery
Dr. Emiliano
Brini
Assistant
Professor
School of Chemistry and
Materials Science, RIT
Abstract: Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are the fundamental unit of function in biology because protein pairs are the basis for protein pathways, networks, and regulation. Understanding PPIs is a crucial step in developing more effective drugs that can regulate pathways instead of single proteins like it is done nowadays. Despite their importance, a striking lack of knowledge still surrounds PPIs and our ability to characterize them. I will present some of the computational tools that we developed to characterize PPIs and our successes using those. I will also talk about the future direction of our research and the tools that we still need to build to obtain a complete picture of PPIs.
Speaker Bio: Professor Brini got its BS and MS in chemistry at the University of Bologna (Italy). He got his PhD in physical chemistry at the TU Darmstadt (Germany). He then moved to the US, to work as a postdoc first and as a research scientist later in the group of Ken Dill in Long Island (NY). He is now an assistant professor of physical chemistry at RIT. The research in his group focuses on developing new computational tools to characterize the free energy landscape of biologically relevant systems like protein-protein interactions and protein-drug binding. He is also interested in exploring new ways to port these tools to characterize materials' properties.
Intended
Audience:
Beginners,
undergraduates, graduates. Those with interest in the
topic.
To request an interpreter, please visit myaccess.rit.edu
END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR