Research Seminar, Fall 2006

Title: Modeling hydrodynamic properties of biological macromolecules:
         A biophysical application for distributed computing.

Abstract:

Our laboratory has been interested in the high resolution analysis of hydrodynamic data from analytical ultracentrifugation experiments. Data from such experiments provide insight into the dynamic interactions among macromolecules involved in the processes of the living cell, and allow their study in the solution states which most closely resemble the physiological conditions in the cell. Current studies focus on the development of parallel methods to simultaneously describe
composition, molecular weight and molecular shape of heterogeneous polymer solutions. In this talk I will describe recent developments involving 2-dimensional spectrum analysis and genetic algorithms applied to this problem. Using a distributed computing approach we can solve very large problems quite efficiently and describe composition at much higher
detail than was possible previously.


Borries Demeler, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
Dept. of Biochemistry, MC 7760
7703 Floyd Curl Drive, San Antonio, Texas 78229-3901
Voice: 210-567-6592, Fax: 210-567-1136, Email:
demeler@biochem.uthscsa.edu