Dr. Chen's new single author paper, "VASP-E: Specificity Annotation with a Volumetric Analysis of Electrostatic Isopotentials", is now in press at PLoS Computational Biology. This paper describes a new algorithm for the volumetric comparison of electrostatic fields in protein-ligand binding cavities and protein-protein interfaces. Dr. Chen demonstrated that this new kind of comparison could complement existing structure-based comparisons, and reveal amino acids that have an electrostatic... Read more
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A paper describing their shared project, entitled "A Gesture-Based Interface for the Exploration and Classification of Protein Binding Cavities", described work by Zachary Daniels, Steven Stinson, Shenchi Tian, and Evan Mulbry on a visualization and classification tool for protein cavities. Their software, called LeapRenderer, allows gestures from a user to rotate and translate protein surfaces and cavities in three dimensions, and to classify similar proteins into groups. As part of the... Read more
On November 7, Zachary Daniels, Steven Stinson, and Dr. Chen visited Spring Garden Elementary School to demonstrate a their Senior Project, "LeapRenderer". LeapRenderer is a visualization tool that uses the leap motion controller to rotate and sort protein structures in three dimensions. The software was a big hit! The kids loved it, and learned a few things about proteins, though Dr. Chen's molecular model has seen better days...
The National Science Foundation has awarded $445,000 in a grant to PI Brian Chen and Co-PI Prof. Katya Scheinberg for the development of algorithms designed for the volumetric alignment of protein binding sites. This funding will support the study of a new kind of protein structure alignment algorithm, which is based on mathematical optimization. Dr. Chen will combine his expertise in protein structure comparison with Dr. Scheinberg's skills in mathematical optimization to create... Read more