Congratulations to John on sharing the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for protein structure prediction!

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The Sosnick Group at The University of Chicago

The Sosnick Group strives to characterize the general principles that guide protein folding and dynamics. We combine multiple experimental and computational approaches to characterize the behavior of proteins in diverse contexts

 

SAXS analysis - collapsed or expanded

Given small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) dataset for an intrinsically disordered protein (IDP), we have developed an analysis method that can determine both the dimension of the ensemble as well as the quality of the solvent (i.e. the extent of self-interactions in the IDP).

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Protein Folding - the 70% Rule

We have found that for many small 2-state proteins, the rate-limiting step of folding - the transition state - has ~70% of the native topology, according to the relative contact order.

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Molecular Dynamics on your laptop!

Wouldn't it be nice to have physically realistic MD trajectories of protein dynamics without needing cpu-weeks/months of simulations? We have developed an MD engine that can reversibly fold some proteins up to 97 amino acids in cpu-days without requiring the use of fragments, homology or evolution.

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News from The Sosnick Group

Congratulations 10/09/2024

sosnick

Congratulations to John on sharing the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for protein structure prediction!

Paper Published 09/22/2020

Joshua Riback

Congratulations to Joshua Riback and our collaborators in the Clark lab on having their recent paper, "Properties of protein unfolded states suggest broad selection for expanded conformational ensembles," published in PNAS!

Congratulations 12/03/2019

Kourtney Kroll

Congratulations to Kourtney Kroll on winning the David Grier Prize in Innovation in Biophysical Sciences for her project, "Engineering a Light Driven Molecular Motor", in collaboration with the Rock group.

Paper Published 10/30/2019

Zongan WangJohn Jumper

Congratulations to Zongan Wang and John Jumper on having their recent paper published, "On the Interpretation of Force-Induced Unfolding Studies of Membrane Proteins Using Fast Simulations", published in BIophysical Journal!

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Specific Research Areas

Protein Folding

Protein Folding
Predicting Folding Dynamics

Predicting Folding Dynamics
Photoswitchable allosteric proteins

Photoswitchable allosteric proteins
Membrane Proteins

Membrane Proteins
Psi analysis

Psi analysis
Conformational Entropy

Conformational Entropy

Recent Publications

M.C. Baxa, X. Lin, C.D. Mukinay, S. Chakravarthy, J.R. Sacheleben, S. Antilla, N. Hartrampf, J.A. Riback, I.A. Gagnon, B.L. Pentelute, P.L. Clark, T.R. Sosnick, "How hydrophobicity, side chains, and salt affect the dimensions of disordered proteins" Prot Sci 33(5):e4986 (2024).

H. Glauninger, J.A.M. Bard, C.W. Hickernell, E.M. Airoldi, W. Li, R.H. Singer, S. Paul, J. Fei, T.R. Sosnick, E.W.J. Wallace, D.A. Drummond, "Transcriptome-wide mRNA condensation precedes stress granule formation and excludes stress-induced transcripts" bioRxiv 2024.04.15.589678

S.K. Kik, D. Christopher, H. Glauninger, C.W. Hickernell, J.A.M. Bard, M. Ford, T.R. Sosnick, D.A. Drummond, "An adaptive biomolecular condensation response is conserved across environmentally divergent species" Nat Comm 15, 3127 (2024).

X. Lin, P. Haller, N. Bavi, N. Faruk, E. Perozo, T.R. Sosnick, "Folding of Prestin’s Anion-Binding Site and the Mechanism of Outer Hair Cell Electromotility" eLife 12:RP89635

T.R. Sosnick, "AlphaFold developers Demis Hassabis and John Jumper share the 2023 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award" J Clin Invest. 133 (19) (2023).

K.L. Kroll, A.R. French, T.R. Sosnick, R.S. Rock, "LILAC: enhanced actin imaging with an optogenetic Lifeact" Nature Methods 20 (2023).

All Publications

Affiliations

University of Chicago
Biochemistry & Molecular Biophsyics
Biophysical Sciences
Institute for Molecular Engineering
Institute for Biophysical Dynamics