Multiscale Simulations of Biocondensates and Genome Organization : Bin Zhang, Pfizer-Laubach Career Development Associate Professor of Chemistry, MIT

Event time: 
February 7, 2023 - 4:00pm to 5:30pm
Location: 
230 Prospect Street (PROS230) See map
Event description: 

Location: SCL 160

Join Yale Chemistry for a  Physical Chemistry Seminar with Bin Zhang, Pfizer-Laubach Career Development Associate Professor of Chemistry, MIT.

Abstract: Coarse-grained models enable large-scale simulations of complex biomolecular systems over long timescales. We have introduced bottom-up approaches based on contrastive learning to parameterize these models using atomistic simulations, and top-down approaches based on maximum entropy optimization to parameterize them from experimental data. We performed coarse-grained simulations to study the liquid-liquid phase separation of biomolecules, which has emerged as a fundamental principle for organizing various cellular structures. In addition, we simulate the 3D conformations of the human genome to understand its organizational principles and the role of chromatin structure in gene regulation. Our studies help elucidate the molecular determinants for the stability, internal organization, and coarsening of biocondensates, and the contribution of various condensates to genome organization.

About Bin Zhang: Bin Zhang attended the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) as a chemical physics major. After graduating from USTC in 2007, Bin moved to the United States to pursue doctoral research at the California Institute of Technology in Thomas Miller’s group. Upon graduation, Bin accepted a position as a postdoctoral scholar with Peter G. Wolynes at the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics at Rice University. Bin joined MIT faculty as an assistant professor in 2016. His research focuses on studying three-dimensional genome organization with interdisciplinary approaches that combine bioinformatics analysis, computational modeling and statistical mechanical theory. While at MIT, Bin has received awards that include the Scialog Fellowship and the NSF CAREER Award.

This seminar is generously sponsored by the Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliman Memorial Fund