Role of Hsp70 Chaperone in Client-Protein Folding Elucidated by Markov State Modeling and NMR Restraint-Assisted Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Michael O'Connor '22 is currently a biophysics PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin. He majored in biochemistry at Lafayette, but he also took a lot of math and biology courses. He was an SI for both Gen Chem and Gen Bio, and current SIs may remember him from when he served on the SI Alumni Panel earlier this semester! His undergradaute thesis work on the computational modeling of freshwater turtle melanopsin was co-advised by Prof. Heidi Hendrickson in Chemistry and Prof. Jim Dearworth in Biology. Michael won the Goldwater Scholarship in 2021.

Michael's seminar will describe his PhD thesis work using molecular dynamics simulations to study chaperone proteins and protein folding! He will also provide a some background on his career path for those who are interested in applying to grad school!