Prof. Chen’s group studies the statistical thermodynamics and kinetics and computer modeling of biomolecules and polymers, particularly RNA & protein folding. Biological molecules are large organic molecules composed of hundreds or thousands of atoms bound together by covalent bonds into a chain-like structure. One of the best known challenges in biology is to understand how biomolecules fold properly into compact structures to perform biological functions and how they mis-fold to cause disease. A fundamental problem his group is pursuing is the study of the physical principles that govern folding-unfolding of bio-molecules. Based on the physical principles, the group is developing statistical mechanical theories and computational models that can make accurate predictions for the sequence-structure and structure-activity relationships for biomolecules. This involves statistical physics, computer simulations and, of course, mathematics.

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