Invitation to ICTP Colloquium on Wednesday 8 March, "Shoot First, Ask Questions Later: From Molecular Simulations to Protein Function", by Prof. Gerhard Hummer, Max Planck Institute of Biophysics

[ICTP Director]

Dear All,

ICTP is pleased to announce that this week's ICTP Colloquium, "Shoot 
First, Ask Questions Later: From Molecular Simulations to Protein 
Function",  by Prof. Gerhard Hummer, Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, 
will take place on Wednesday  8 March at 16:30 hrs, in the Budinich 
Lecture Hall, Leonardo Building, ICTP.

BIOSKETCH: Gerhard Hummer received his PhD in physics in 1992 for work 
at the University of Vienna, Austria, and the Max-Planck-Institute for 
Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany. He joined the Los Alamos 
National Laboratory, first as a postdoctoral fellow (1993-1996) and then 
as a group leader (1996-1999). In 1999, he moved to the National 
Institutes of Health, where he became Chief of the Theoretical 
Biophysics Section, and Deputy Chief of the Laboratory of Chemical 
Physics, NIDDK. In 2013 he joined the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics 
in Frankfurt, Germany, as director of the newly formed Department of 
Theoretical Biophysics. Since 2016, he is also Professor of Biophysics 
at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. Dr Hummer uses molecular 
simulations, modeling, and theory to study the structure and dynamics of 
biological systems at the molecular level, in an effort to elucidate 
their function. His current research focuses on molecular principles in 
bioenergetics, membrane transport, and membrane remodeling. Gerhard 
Hummer is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (2005) and received 
the Raymond and Beverly Sackler International Prize in Biophysics (2010).

ABSTRACT:  Proteins carry out an enormous array of functions, from 
chemical catalysis over molecular sensing to the efficient 
interconversion of chemical, mechanical, electrical, and light energy. 
To understand how proteins function, we study their dynamics with 
molecular simulations that cover a wide range of temporal and spatial 
scales. At one extreme, we follow fast, photoexcitation-driven protein 
motions using a hybrid quantum-mechanics/molecular-mechanics (QM/MM) 
description. The resulting simulation trajectories are compared directly 
to femtosecond time-resolved protein crystallography and solution 
scattering experiments at an X-ray free electron laser (XFEL), and to 
femtosecond optical spectroscopy. At intermediate scales, we study the 
functional dynamics in molecular rotary motors and pumps using classical 
molecular dynamics simulations. At the slow extreme, we combine 
atomistic and coarse-grained simulations to find out how eukaryotic 
cells probe the physical characteristics of their lipid membranes, and 
in response activate regulatory processes. For these systems, and for 
biomolecular machines in general, molecular dynamics simulations provide 
us with critical insight into the molecular principles underlying their 
efficient operation.

The abstract of the talk is available at http://indico.ictp.it/event/8144/

The Colloquium will be livestreamed at http://video.ictp.it/livestream

The poster is attached.

Light refreshments will be served after the lecture.

You are all very warmly invited to attend.

Best regards,

Fernando Quevedo