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faculty profile |
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| Dr. Don Jacobs |
| Associate Professor |
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Department: Department of Physics and Opitical Science |
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Office: Grigg Hall 343 |
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Office Hours: |
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Email: djacobs1@uncc.edu |
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Phone: 704-687-8143 |
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Personal Homepage |
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Research Description:
My research interests are best described as a mixture of statistical and computational physics supplemented with algorithm development. My broad interests naturally attract me to the interface of interdisciplinary research, which I now target in molecular biophysics and computational biology. I am particularly pleased to be working in Applied Physics, where on the one hand, I do abstract theoretical/computational physics, while on the other hand produce a practical computational tool for scientists working in the area of Life-science interested in protein chemistry. For this greater goal to be achieved, much of my research is in collaboration with others on campus, from Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Engineering and Computer Science. Thanks to funding from the National Institute of Health (NIH), we have a very active on-going project to develop innovative theory/models to understand protein stability and flexibility. The primary research focus of this project is to implement a novel computational method to facilitate accurate and fast predictions of stability, flexibility and dynamics of proteins, and to quantitatively determine relationships between these distinct physical properties. We are developing a database for Quantified Stability-Flexibility Relationships (QSFR) that will incorporate user-friendly tools to extract information important for characterizing protein function. These computational methods will be useful to facilitate targeted-drug design predictions. My future research plan is to leverage the new methods we are developing today, into innovative next-generation state-of-art protein design software. An example target application is high-throughput computer aided design of stable enzyme catalysts for optimal function in specified environmental conditions and to obtain improved protein-pharmacore interactions. |
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Recent Publications:
D.J. Jacobs (2006). Invited Review: Predicting Protein Flexibility and Stability using Network Rigidity: A new Modeling Paradigm. Recent Research Developments in Biophysics, 5:71-131.
D.R. Livesay, D.J. Jacobs, J. Kanjanapangka, Chea, H. Cortez, J. Garcia, P. Kidd, M.P. Marquez, S. Pande, D. Yang (2006). Probing the conformational dependence of calculated pKa values. Journal of Chemical Theory & Computation, 2(4):927-938.
D.J. Jacobs, D.R. Livesay, J. Hules, M.L. Tasayco (2006). Elucidating quantitative stability/flexibility relationships within thioredoxin and its fragments using a distance constraint model. Journal of Molecular Biology, 358(3):882-904.
D.R. Livesay, D.J. Jacobs (2006). Conserved quantified stability/flexibility relationships (QSFR) in an orthologous RNase H pair. Proteins: Structure, Function, & Bioinformatics, 62(1):130-143.2.
D. J. Jacobs and S. Dallakayan (2005). Elucidating Protein Thermodynamics from the Three Dimensional Structure of the Native State Using Network Rigidity. Biophysical Journal, 88:1-13.
D.R. Livesay, S. Dallakyan, G.G. Wood, D.J. Jacobs (2004). A flexible approach for understanding protein stability. FEBS Letters, 576: 468-476.
M.S. Lee, G.G. Wood, D.J. Jacobs (2004). Investigations on the alpha-helix to coil transition in HP-heterogeneous polypeptides using network rigidity. J Phys Cond Mat, 16:S5035-S5046.
B.M. Hespenheide, D.J. Jacobs, M.F. Thorpe (2004). Structural rigidity in the capsid assembly of cowpea chlorotic mottle virus. J Phys Cond Mat, 16:S5055-S5064.
D.J. Jacobs, G.G. Wood (2004). Understanding the a-Helix to Coil Transition in Polypeptides Using Network Rigidity: Predicting Heat and Cold Denaturation in Mixed Solvent Conditions. Biopolymers, 75:1-31.
D.J. Jacobs, S. Dallakayan, G.G. Wood, A. Heckathorne (2003). Network rigidity at finite temperature: Relationships between thermodynamic stability, the nonadditivity of entropy, and cooperativity in molecular systems. Phys Rev E, 68:061109.
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Research Areas:
Biophysics and Computational Biology
Constraint Theory and Network Rigidity
Modeling Protein Folding and Kinetics
Protein Design Software
Protein Stability/Flexibility Relationships
Statistical/Computational/Applied Physics
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