Principal Investigator Mei Hong
Project Website http://meihonglab.com/
The Hong Group develops and applies magic-angle-spinning solid-state NMR spectroscopy to elucidate the structure and dynamics of biological macromolecules. We seek to understand how molecular conformation, motion, and intermolecular interactions enable proteins and carbohydrates to carry out their functions such as ion conduction across lipid membranes, membrane fusion between viruses and cells, membrane scission during virus budding, and maintenance and expansion of plant cell walls. We also investigate the structure and dynamics of amyloid proteins in neurodegenerative diseases. To answer these mechanistic biophysical questions, we innovate multinuclear (1H, 13C, 15N, 19F, 2H, & 31P) and multidimensional solid-state NMR techniques that measure molecular structure, inter-atomic distances, and amplitudes and rates of molecular motions with high sensitivity.