Wolynes, Peter G. - Rice University - Department of Chemistry

个人简介

A.M. Chemistry (1972) Harvard University Ph.D. Chemical Physics (1976) Harvard University A.B. Chemistry (Honors) (1971) Indiana University

研究领域

The research in my group is broadly concerned with many-body phenomena in biology, chemistry and physics. A major theme is understanding systems where a large diversity of long-lived states is involved, necessitating the use of a statistical characterization of an energy or attractor landscape. The most notable examples are glasses, liquids, biomolecules and biomolecular regulatory networks. In the area of protein folding we are interested both in describing folding kinetics in the laboratory and the development of bioinformatically based schemes for predicting structure from sequence using computer simulation. A key concept is that the energy landscape of a foldable protein looks like a rugged funnel. This idea guides the development of both simple folding kinetics models and structure prediction algorithms. Similar issues of attractor landscapes also arise in higher order biological processes, such as gene recognition and genetic network regulation, which we also study. The energy landscapes of supercooled liquids and glasses also present interesting problems. We have shown how a new approach based on "random first order transitions" explains many quantitative relations found empirically both in liquids and under cryogenic conditions where quantum effects play a role. The same ideas show promise in the study of systems as different as high temperature superconductors, polymer assemblies, and microemulsions. They are also useful for describing the three dimensional structure and dynamics of the interior of living cells.

近期论文

查看导师最新文章（温馨提示：请注意重名现象，建议点开原文通过作者单位确认）

Wang S, Wolynes P. Active contractility and motor-driven effective interactions in a model cytoskeleton. In: APS March Meeting Abstracts. Vol. 1. APS March Meeting Abstracts. ; 2013. p. 1174. Wang S, Wolynes PG. Active patterning and asymmetric transport in a model actomyosin network. The Journal of chemical physics. 2013 ;139:235103. Tsytlonok M, Craig PO, Sivertsson E, Serquera D, Perrett S, Best RB, Wolynes PG, Itzhaki LS. Complex Energy Landscape of a Giant Repeat Protein. Structure. 2013 ;21:1954–1965. Schafer NP, Hoffman RMB, Burger A, Craig PO, Komives EA, Wolynes PG. Correction: Discrete Kinetic Models from Funneled Energy Landscape Simulations. PloS one. 2013 ;8. Potoyan DA, Wolynes PG. On the dephasing of genetic oscillations. arXiv preprint arXiv:1306.5355. 2013 . Wisitsorasak A, Wolynes PG. Fluctuating mobility generation and transport in glasses. Physical Review E. 2013 ;88:022308. Zheng W, Schafer NP, Wolynes PG. Free energy landscapes for initiation and branching of protein aggregation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2013 ;110:20515–20520. Ferreiro DU, Komives EA, Wolynes PG. Frustration in Biomolecules. arXiv preprint arXiv:1312.0867. 2013 . Zheng W, Schafer NP, Wolynes PG. Frustration in the energy landscapes of multidomain protein misfolding. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2013 ;110:1680–1685. Truong HH, Kim BL, Schafer NP, Wolynes PG. Funneling and frustration in the energy landscapes of some designed and simplified proteins. The Journal of chemical physics. 2013 ;139:121908. Schafer NP, Kim BL, Zheng W, Wolynes PG. Learning to Fold Proteins Using Energy Landscape Theory. arXiv preprint arXiv:1312.7283. 2013 . Wang S, Wolynes PG. Microscopic theory of the glassy dynamics of passive and active network materials. The Journal of chemical physics. 2013 ;138:12A521. Rabochiy P, Wolynes PG, Lubchenko V. Microscopically based calculations of the free energy barrier and dynamic length scale in supercooled liquids: The comparative role of configurational entropy and elasticity. The Journal of Physical Chemistry B. 2013 ;117:15204–15219. Wolynes P. Motorized Glasses and Crystals: Microscopic Models of Active Matter and the Cytoskeleton. In: APS Meeting Abstracts. Vol. 1. APS Meeting Abstracts. ; 2013. p. 45005. Wolynes PG. A Scientific Memoir. The Journal of Physical Chemistry B. 2013 ;117:12672–12675. Wang S, Wolynes PG. Active contractility in actomyosin networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2012 ;109:6446–6451. Craig PO, Hoffman R, Lätzer J, Weinkam P, Komives EA, Wolynes PG. Analysis of Native H/D Exchange Dynamics in EX1/EX2 Conditions using Structure Based Model Simulations. Biophysical Journal. 2012 ;102:448a.