UNC PI References and Research Interests
We have developed and implemented a rapid simulation technique, called the Discrete Molecular Dynamics (DMD)– a rapid tool to perform simulations of protein models that is capable of resolving not only the details of the protein folding mechanism (Dokholyan et al., J. Mol. Biol. 296: 1183-1188 (2000); Ding et al., Biophys. J. 83: 3525-3532 (2002); Borreguero et al., J. Mol. Biol. 318: 863-876 (2002)), but the formation of protein aggregates by a large number of proteins (Ding et al., J. Mol. Biol. 324: 851-857 (2002)). I believe that using DMD it is possible to study the structure of mucus layer and, thus, the rheology of this layer. Also, using DMD it is possible study the collective motion of the cilia and even interaction between cilia and the mucus.