The main motivation and goal of Prof. Kosztin’s research in biological physics is to understand how living matter is organized and functions at different (e.g., atomic or microscopic, sub-cellular or mesoscopic) levels. In his research, he employs and develops computational methods widely used in molecular modeling (e.g., large scale, parallel molecular dynamics simulations, molecular visualization, stochastic modeling and analysis), as well as, analytical methods used in theoretical physics. The type of problems currently researched in his group are related to: mechanical force generation and signaling mechanisms in G-proteins, force transduction by motor proteins, effect of static and dynamic disorder (thermal fluctuations) on energy transfer in light harvesting proteins, mass and charge transport in transmembrane channel proteins, reconstruction of potential of mean force from non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations, and aggregation phenomena in biological systems.

Featured Story: New theory unlocks the secret behind protein-membrane interactions