Chemistry Pharmacy
Structural Biology Laboratory
Structure-Function Relationships in Proteins
Proteins play a central role in all biological activities of cells. Problems occurring in proteins would lead to carious diseases, including cancer, as well as neurogenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. The mechanism involved in protein functions and diseases and also the development of new drugs can be elucidated by understanding the structure of proteins at the atomic level. This science field is called “Structural Biology.” In our group, we apply pressure perturbations of up to several thousand atmospheres and monitor the conformation of proteins using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Under high pressure semi-stable conformations of proteins, such as “open” conformations of enzymes and partially disordered conformations, are stabilized. We hope that the study of semi-stable conformations of proteins will lead to the development of new drugs.