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SERGE
SMIRNOV
Assistant Professor
Biochemistry
Education
M.S. Molecular Biophysics and Applied Physics & Mathematics, Moscow
Institute of Physics and Technology, 1990.
Ph.D. Molecular & Cellular Pharmacology, State University of New
York, Stony Brook, 2000.
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and
Health Sciences.
Research Interests
I investigate how structure and dynamics of
proteins and DNA interplay with their biological function. Currently, I
study the structure/dynamics properties of proteins which consist of
multiple structured domains (modules). Many of such modular proteins
are capable of altering their roles in response to cell signals by
repositioning the domains relatively to each other while each
individual domain remains structurally unperturbed. Multi-domain
proteins constitute the majority of human proteome yet their very
flexibility and capacity to rearrange often prevent their structural
characterization by most techniques (e.g. x-ray crystallography).
Methods I specialize in (especially Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
spectroscopy or NMR) combined with general biochemical approaches
deliver site-specific information about the structure, dynamics and
function of modular proteins. I am especially interested in deciphering
the roles of the inter-domain linkers by understanding how their
length, residue composition and backbone dynamics relate to the
function of the corresponding modular proteins.
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