Alladi Ramakrishnan Hall

Exploring biomolecular energy landscapes with different flavors of coarse-graining

Debayan Chakraborty

IMSc

During the last few decades, the energy landscape framework has emerged as a conceptual, as well as a computational tool to understand the intimate connections
between biomolecular structure, dynamics, and function. Nonetheless, determining
the global topography of the energy landscape using standard computational techniques has proved challenging. In this context, a coarse-graining of the landscape can prove effective. In the first part of my talk, I will
highlight how this approach can be exploited to obtain key atomistic insights into RNA folding, as well as conformational switching between competing morphologies. In the second part, I will illustrate how a different flavor of coarse-graining can also be a viable route towards understanding
key biophysical phenomena. In this context, a problem related to the aggregation
propensities of amyloid peptides, will be discussed.