We are a group of scientists who study physical properties of DNA at the molecular level. Unlike the static picture of DNA seen in textbooks, DNA is a highly dynamic molecule that undergoes dramatic changes during biological processes. From a physical and evolutionary perspective, we are thus interested in understanding how the structure and dynamics of DNA encoded in its own sequence can facilitate and guide those complex biological processes. We use microscopy and spectroscopy tools to observe molecular motions in real time and compare experimental results against quantitative models or computational simulations to illuminate the underlying physics.
Keywords: biological physics, nucleic acids, DNA-protein interactions, single-molecule biophysics, single-molecule fluorescence microscopy, single-molecule force spectroscopy, Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations, quantitative modeling, statistical physics, stochastic processes
