This web site is to introduce research and graduate programs at Penn State offering training opportunities in biophysics and biophysical chemistry. Diverse biophysical research programs are active in Chemistry, Physics, Biochemistry and molecular biology (BMB), and Biomedical engineering departments. Shown below is a list of faculty members and research topics. For information on the graduate programs, please refer to the departmental web sites: Graduate programs in Chemistry, Physics, BMB, and Biomedical Engineering.
Reka Albert (Physics): Modeling of signal transduction pathways
Lu Bai (BMB and Physics): Single cell/molecule imaging, Nucleosome/Chromatin biophysics
Philip Bevilacqua (Chemistry and BMB): RNA biophysics, in vivo RNA folding
David Boehr (Chemistry): Biological NMR, Protein structure
Peter Butler (Biomedical Engineering): Cellular mechanobiology
Craig Cameron (BMB): Enzyme kinetics, RNA virus
Chris Keating (Chemistry): Artificial cells, liquid-liquid phase separation as a model for intracellular compartmentalization, reactions in crowded and compartmentalized biomimetic media
Paul Cremer (Chemistry): Ligand-Receptor Binding at Lipid Membranes, Ion Specific Effects on Protein Folding (Hofmeister Chemistry), Interfacial Water Structure, and Nonlinear Optical Spectroscopy
John Golbeck (BMB and Chemistry): Spectroscopic dynamics of photosynthesis
Tae-Hee Lee (Chemistry): Single molecule methods, Super-resolution fluorescence microscopy, Optical tweezers, Nucleosome biophysics, DNA replication mechanisms
William Noid (Chemistry): Theoretical and computational biophysics, Protein structure
Edward O’brien (Chemistry): Theoretical and computational biophysics, Ribosome, Translation
Scott Showalter (Chemistry and BMB): Biological NMR, Intrinsically disordered protein
Xin Zhang (Chemistry and BMB): in vivo Protein folding