Biophysical Chemistry Group

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Team leader: prof. dr hab. Wojciech Dzwolak

Team leader’s e-mail address: wdzwolak@chem.uw.edu.pl

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Brief description of the research topic:

  The research conducted in the Laboratory of Biophysical Chemistry is focused on the cross-roads of chemistry, biology and physics, namely:

1) Physicochemical and molecular basis of conformational diseases, aggregation and amyloidogenesis of proteins; the problem of unequivocal encoding of structural information in amyloid propagation; exotic beta-sheet structures;

2) Non-Anfinsenian behavior of proteins: the conformation memory effect and the phenomenon of chiral bifurcation as examples of highly far-from-equilibrium processes accompanying misfolding of polypeptides and proteins;

3) Prebiotic physical chemistry: A thermodynamic perspective on early life on Earth;

4) Applications of optical spectroscopy (in particular vibrational spectroscopy and electronic circular dichroism) to study structural transitions of biomacromolecules;

5) Biological soft matter: the relationship between the structure and dynamics of biopolymers (especially proteins) and their macroscopic physicochemical properties, as well as  applications of physicochemically modified proteins as new functional bionanomaterials.