Biological Physics, Soft-Condensed Matter and X-ray Detector Development The Gruner Lab

1. Biological Physics, Soft-Condensed Matter and X-ray Detector Development The Gruner Lab Department of Physics, Cornell University Pixel Array Detector – We’re using cutting-edge CMOS microchip fabrication to develop a new generation of ultra-fast (μs) and flexible Pixel Array X-ray Detectors. The PAD has already been used for Laue diffraction and imaging the supersonic jet from a fuel injector on sub-microsecond times. Proteins under Pressure - We study the response of proteins to pressure using the MacCHESS synchrotron facility to obtain atomic scale structural information. Pressure studies give new information about protein folding and the role of pressure in biology. Remarkably, it may also work as a cryoprotection technique for macrocrystallography making it of great interest to structural genomics. Protein-Membrane Interactions - The kinetics and thermodynamics of ion channels and other membrane proteins depends strongly on the membrane they are in. We’re using liquid crystals to characterize the membrane’s properties and electrophysiology to study ion channel dynamics to explore this dependency. Visit http://bigbro.biophys.cornell.edu or email Professor Gruner at sol@bigbro.biophys.cornell.edu to find out more More Projects on the Other Side

2. Biological Physics, Soft-Condensed Matter and X-ray Detector Development The Gruner Lab Department of Physics, Cornell University Nanocomposite Self-Assembling MaterialsPolymers can be made to spontaneously form into complicated lattices that should have applications including catalytic films and photonic crystals. We make and manipulate these nanocomposite structures using Block Copolymers and study their properties with X-ray scattering and electron microscopy. CHESSProfessor Sol Gruner is director of the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source, a world class X-ray facility located on campus in Ithaca. Group members regularly perform experiments at CHESS and projects are available in Instrumentation, Materials Science, X-ray Physics and Accelerator Physics. In addition, plans are afoot for the Energy Recovery Linac, a revolutionary new type of X-ray light source. Membrane Protein Crystallization Over 25% of the genome codes for membrane proteins yet only a handful of membrane protein structures are known to atomic resolution. It is excruciatingly difficult to make membrane protein crystals but a new technique was recently discovered that uses cubic lipid phases. We are investigating how the cubic crystallization method works and attempting to extend it to thermotropic phase transitions Visit http://bigbro.biophys.cornell.edu or email Professor Gruner at sol@bigbro.biophys.cornell.edu to find out more More Projects on the Other Side