Achievement

Trainee Nathan Kuwada's (UO Physics, Linke lab) project is motivated by the desire to understand biological molecular motors from a 'bottom-up' approach, where generic design choices and functionality of any molecular-scale motor can be learned from the design process. Kuwada is a member of a large international collaboration, including researchers from the UK, Australia, Sweden, and Canada, working to design and construct an artificial, protein-based molecular motor. While on IGERT support, Kuwada developed a new computational model of the motor based on a stochastic modeling technique called the Master equation, which allows for modeling of motor processes across many different time scales. The work, in collaboration with Dr. Gerhard Blab at Simon Fraser University, is reported in a manuscript submitted to Chemical Physics in January 2010.