We received seed funding from the College of Natural Sciences to begin a collaboration project with Prof. Richard Aldrich (UT Dept of Neuroscience).

The purpose of this project is to study protein conformational changes induced by ion binding. Ultrafast 2D IR spectroscopy and molecular dynamics simulations will be used to capture bond-by-bond “snapshots” of protein conformations with extremely fast time resolution, thus measuring molecular motion that is “blurred out” by conventional experimental techniques. The project combines the biochemistry expertise of Aldrich’s group and the time-resolved spectroscopy capabilities of Baiz’s group.