On Monday, May 3, 2004, 4:30 PM Barus & Holley (Room 168) Xiaowei Zhuang (Harvard University) will present a talk entitled:

" Visualizing How Single Virus Particles Enter Cells "

as part of the Seminar Series

"Frontiers in the Interaction Between Physics and Biology"

Abstract:

Understanding molecular mechanisms underlying biological processes is one of the major goals in modern biophysics and molecular biology. As biology gets more quantitative, this goal is becoming more accessible. However, major roadblocks still exist on the way. Among those is the difficulty that one often encounters in characterizing complex dynamics of biological processes: the existence of multiple kinetic paths and transient intermediate states makes these processes difficult to dissect by ensemble methods. To tackle this problem, my research group is developing physical techniques to monitor the behavior of individual biological molecules and particles and thus to elucidate complex dynamics beyond the limit of ensemble methods. In this talk, I will report our recent progress in the following two areas. (1) Molecular mechanisms of viral infection: our single virus-tracking experiments allow us to visualize the viral infection process in real time, dissect indivi!
dual stages of the viral entry pathway, and obtain a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms governing the influenza infection. (2) Structural dynamics of RNA and RNP enzymes: our single-molecule studies provide critical insights into the molecular mechanisms governing RNA structural dynamics, the factors rate-limiting RNA enzymatic reactions, and the effects of protein on the structural dynamics of RNA enzymes.