Materials Science and Biophysics Research Seminar Series

Cyclopropanols as bioorthogonal warheads for biomedicine and biological applications 

Friday, September 18, 2026

Health Sciences Building EC 2234

2:00 - 3:00 PM

Host: Dr. Mustafa Culha (mculha@augusta.edu)

Bioconjugation provides powerful ways to attach chemical probes, imaging agents, or functional molecules to biomolecules, enabling researchers to visualize, manipulate, and study biological processes. These approaches are increasingly important in chemical biology, biotechnology, and therapeutic development. In this talk, I will first introduce some general concepts underlying the emerging paradigm of bioconjugation chemistry, with an emphasis on controlling chemical reactivity in complex biological environments. I will then discuss a recent example of using cyclopropanol (CPol) as a stimulus-responsive bioorthogonal warhead. CPol can be selectively activated under physiological conditions using electrochemical or chemical stimuli to generate reactive ketone-containing products. This controlled reactivity enables applications including protein conjugation, cell-surface labeling, and proteomic analysis. Together, these studies establish CPol and related compounds as “caged” functional groups that can be activated on demand, providing a versatile strategy for developing new bioconjugation tools.

Using this opportunity, I will also briefly introduce our department and graduate program at the University of South Carolina for students interested in pursuing graduate study in chemistry and biochemistry.

Lipid Membranes as Tunable Materials: Molecular Interactions, Light, and Dynamics

Friday, October 16, 2026

Health Sciences Building EC 1210

2:00 - 3:00 PM

Host: Dr. Trinanjan Datta (tdatta@augusta.edu)

Lipid membranes are dynamic molecular assemblies whose structure and properties are governed by interactions among lipids, water, ions, and proteins in the cellular environment. Understanding how these interactions respond to external stimuli is important for developing new approaches to control membrane function and molecular transport. In this seminar, I will present our recent work on azobenzene-containing phospholipids (azo-PC), which undergo reversible trans–cis photoisomerization in response to light. Using a combination of spectroscopy and molecular dynamics simulations, we investigate how lipid composition influences azo-PC photoisomerization and how these molecular changes affect membrane organization, with potential applications in controlled drug delivery. I will also highlight related studies from my group examining how other molecular interactions regulate lipid membrane behavior, including calcium-ion binding to negatively charged phospholipids. Together, these studies explore lipid membranes as tunable materials whose structure and dynamics can be modulated by molecular interactions and external stimuli.

Computational Approaches for Proteins Beyond Experimental Resolution

Friday, November 6, 2026

Health Sciences Building EC 1210

2:00 - 3:00 PM

Host: Dr. Trinanjan Datta (tdatta@augusta.edu)

Deep learning-based protein structure prediction can reproduce experimentally determined tertiary structures with near-experimental accuracy for many globular proteins. However, model-reported confidence scores highlight persistent challenges for intrinsically disordered regions, conformational heterogeneity, and assemblies that are only partially structurally resolved. Moreover, structure prediction typically yields static structures and does not directly provide conformational populations or interaction energetics. In this seminar, I will present an integrative workflow used in our research group that couples deep learning-based structure prediction with all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to study protein systems beyond current experimental resolution. MD is used to explore conformational variability, test the stability of predicted structural features, and characterize protein-protein interfaces across an ensemble of states. The approach is illustrated through ongoing projects, including full-length modeling of the human prion protein (PrP) and protein complexes lacking experimentally determined structures. Finally, I will discuss post-simulation end-point analyses to estimate relative interaction energetics and identify residue-level contributions.

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Health Sciences Building EC TBA

2:00 - 3:00 PM

Host: Dr. Kyle Crocker (kycrocker@augusta.edu) 

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