Protein Biophysics Group
Latest news
- October 2011: Vijay Balakrishnan submitted his thesis "Novicidin interactions with phospholipid membranes". He will defend it on Tuesday 6th December
- October 2011: Huabing defended his thesis "Protein-surfactant interactions" Monday 24th October. Shirin ("Deconstructing glucagon fibrillation") and Francesca ("Shaken not stirred") defended their theses Wednesday 26th October.
- September 2011: Daniel Otzen is awarded 2.134 mio kr from the Danish Medical Science Council (FSS) on the topic "Understanding the molecular basis of α-synuclein oligomer toxicity".
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Daniel Erik OtzenProfessor, Ph.D.Aarhus University Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Centre Department of Molecular Biology Gustav Wieds Vej 10 C 8000 Aarhus C DENMARK Tel.: +45 2072 5238 Fax: +45 8612 3178 Email:dao@inano.au.dk |
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Research overview
Our research activities fall within 3 main areas, which all relate to the study of the kinetics and thermodynamics of protein conformational changes, namely membrane protein folding, protein-detergent interactions and protein fibrillation. These areas are linked by a keen interest in understanding the mechanistic and thermodynamic behaviour of proteins in different circumstances by quantifying the strength of internal side-chain interactions as well as contacts with solvent molecules, whether it be detergents, denaturants, stabilizing salts and osmolytes or lipids. Ultimately we hope this will lead to a greater manipulative ability vis-a-vis processes of both basic, pharmaceutical and industrial relevance. The general approach is to use available spectroscopic techniques (fluorescence, CD, stopped-flow, FTIR, NMR and dynamic and static light scattering) to generate data which can be analyzed in a quantitative manner to develop models and mechanisms for conformational changes at the molecular level.Protein fibrillation |
Membrane proteins |
Protein detergent interactions |
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