Upcoming QLS seminar - Friday 19 June at 15:00

[Quantitative Life Sciences]

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UPCOMING QLS SEMINAR
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Friday, 19 June at 15:00
L. Stasi seminar room - ICTP, Leonardo building

Speaker: Mohammad Reza EJTEHADI (Department of Physics, Sharif 
University of Technology, Tehran Iran)

Title: Nano-mechanics of DNA in severe conditions

Abstract:
DNA is perhaps the most important of all biomolecules, not only because 
it carries the genetic information of biological systems, but also 
because of its mechanical flexibility that helps its biological 
function. Thus, elasticity of DNA plays an important role in its 
biological function. With a typical length of a few macrometers to 
several centimeters, it is only two nanometers wide. When the molecule 
is free in aquatic environment and in physiological conditions it 
behaves like a flexible rod, but the molecule is usually found in very 
tight geometries. In eukaryotic cells, it tightly fits inside 
micron-sized cell nuclei, with many sharp bends in nano scale. As 
another example, it can be encapsulated and found in highly confined 
structures in viral capsids with a size of tens of nanometers. Thus, 
understanding the structure of the molecule under such severe 
confinements and the way the molecule responds to these geometrical 
constraints, may help to understand DNA function better.

In this talk we overview the theoretical models and their results in 
molecular structure of DNA in nanoscale, and its mechanical response to 
external perturbations.

-- 
Erica Sarnataro
Group Secretary
Quantitative Life Sciences
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)
Trieste,  Italy
Tel. +39-040-2240623
e-mail:qls at ictp.it  


-- 
Erica Sarnataro
Group Secretary
Quantitative Life Sciences
The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP)
Trieste,  Italy
Tel. +39-040-2240623
e-mail: qls at ictp.it