Bagchi Group Research Overview

The polarity of the protein interiors as well as the protein dynamics affect protein's interactions with ligands, substrates and other proteins making it a critical determinant of protein structure and activity. Because electrostatic interactions and hydrogen bonds are prevalent in any biomolecular system, experimental determination of local electrostatics are pivotal to the understanding of the role of these interactions to biomolecular functions. In addition, experimental determination of the protein dynamics and fluctuations is necessary to elucidate the role of molecular motions towards function. A similar analogy can also be drawn for complex chemical (organic/inorganic) reactions. Thus a complete understanding of the structure, interactions and dynamics is needed to obtain a detailed description of the complex molecular processes.

In our research group, we use time averaged and time resolved spectroscopic techniques to obtain a quantitative understanding of structures, interactions, and dynamics in biological/chemical reactions and interrogate their roles and interdependencies towards function. We also use theoretical methods like molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and quantum chemical calculations to obtain a molecular level understanding of the biological/chemical processes.

Research Problems: We look into a variety of research problems in the fields of biology, chemistry and material science. Few topics of interest are protein-interactions and dynamics, enzyme catalysis, solvation in binary aqueous mixtures and ionic liquids, nanoparticle inhibitors of amyloid fibrils, organocatalysis. To learn more about our research problems please click here.

Experimental Techniques: We use for steady state and time resolved spectroscopic methods to interrogate our research problems. To know more about the experimental methods we use, please click here.

Our research also involves synthesis of small molecules, bioconjugation, molecular biology, and standard analytical characterization techniques (as per the requirement of the project). Theoretical studies like MD simulations and DFT calculations are routinely performed to compare with our experimental results.

Contact us | Office: +91-20-2590-3048 | Address: Room 1735 CMC Building, CSIR - National Chemical Laboratory, Dr. Homi Bhabha Road, Pune 411 008, Maharashtra, India