Tongye Shen, Ph.D.

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Research Statement

Our focus is to understand the stability and the dynamics of mechanical structures of biological interests: from the level of single biomolecules to sub-cellular assembly for both equilibrium and far-from-equilibrium systems. Currently, by using advanced modeling methods and large scaling computer simulations, we study challenging problems such as biofuel & biomass conversion, non-equilibrium dynamics of cellular structures, statistics of biopolymer configurations in extreme environments, signaling by post-translational modifications.

Selected Publications

Klein, H., Cheng, X., Smith, J.C., & Shen, T. (2011) Transfer matrix approach to the hydrogen-bonding in cellulose I-a fibrils describes the recalcitrance to thermal deconstruction, in press, J. Phys. Chem.

Yao, J., Nellas, R., Glover, M.M., & Shen, T. (2011) Stability and sugar recognition ability of ricin-like carbohydrate binding domains, Biochemistry 50(19), 4097-4104.

Wang, S.S., Shen, T., & Wolynes, P.G. (2011) The interplay of nonlinearity and architecture in equilibrium cytoskeletal mechanics, J. Chem. Phys. 134(1), 014510

Bellesia, G., Asztalos, A., Shen, T., Langan, P., Redondoe, A., & Gnanakaran, S. (2010) Computational studies of crystalline cellulose and its degradation by enzymes, Acta Cryst. D66 1184-1188

Johnson, Q., Doshi, U., Shen, T., & Hamelberg, D. (2010) Water’s contribution to the energetic roughness from peptide dynamics, J. Chem. Theo. Comput. 6(9), 2591-2597.

Lynch, R.M. et al. (2010) Subtype-specific conservation of isoleucine 309 in the envelope V3 domain is linked to immune evasion in subtype C HIV-1 infection, Virol. 404(1), 59-70.

Shen, T., Langan, P., French, A., Johnson, G.P., & Gnanakaran, S. (2009) Conformational flexibility of soluble cellulose oligomers: Chain length and temperature dependence, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 131(41), 14786-14794.

 

Contact Information

Tongye Shen, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
UT/ORNL Center for Molecular Biophysics
F433 Walters Life Sciences
1414 Cumberland Avenue
Knoxville, TN 37996

Phone: (865) 974-4088
Email: TShen@utk.edu