Title:  Infrared Structural Biology: Principles, Techniques& Applications

Speaker： Prof. Aihua Xie
                    Department of Physics, Oklahoma State Universities, Stillwater, OK

Address： Rm 101, East wing of Old Chemistry Building, Peking Unversity 

Chair：  Prof. Luhua Lai,  Center for Quantitative Biology 

Abtract:

      It is well known that high resolution protein 3D structures from X-ray crystallography and NMR technologies have played criticalroles in understanding the functional mechanism of proteins. It is far less known what infrared structural biology can contribute to our understanding of proteins. Infrared structural biology is an emerging technology. One major application of infrared structural biology is to provide structural information that are missing from traditional structural biology, such as how to detect proton transfer, electron transfer, and functionally important structural dynamics of proteins. In my talk, I will introduce the principles of infrared structural biology and how to translate infrared spectroscopic signals into specific structural information. In addition, I will give a brief overview on advanced FT-IR techniques and discuss two examples of how to apply infrared structural biology to understand biological signaling of photoactive yellow protein and client diversity of heat shock protein 90.

Biography: Aihua Xie is a Professor of Physics at Oklahoma State University. She received her undergraduate education in physics from Zhejiang University (China). Xie came to the United-States through a US-China exchange program (CUSPEA) in 1981, received her Master in Physics and PhD in Physics and in Biophysics from Carnegie-Mellon University (Pittsburgh, USA). After postdoctoral and faculty research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, she joined the physics faculty of Oklahoma State University in 1997. Her research areas include protein dynamics, biological signaling, proton transfers in proteins, and infrared structural biology. Xie has more than 25 years of experience in advanced infrared studies of proteins, including time-resolved FTIR, microfluidic FTIR, high pressure FTIR, cryogenic FTIR, synchrotron FTIR and extensive use of picosecond infrared free electron lasers. She was elected to Fellow of American Physical Society in 2003.

PS: Xie was Chair of Division of Biological Physics of American Physical Society in 2011, Vice Chair of IUPAP Commission on Biological Physics (2011-2014), and currently Xie serves as the Chair of IUPAP Commission on Biological Physics (2014-2017). （IUPAP= International Union of Pure and Applied Physics.)