Jan Kubelka
Assistant Professor
Physical Chemistry

Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry, 2002, University of Illinois at Chicago
Postdoctoral Fellow, National Institutes of Health


jkubelka@uwyo.edu • (307) 766-2673 • PS 321

Biophysical Chemistry and Spectroscopy
Research in Kubelka group is centered on problems of protein structure and dynamics, along with the development of new sensitive spectroscopic methods for their study. Our main goal is to understand the molecular mechanism of protein folding. We focus on small and structurally simple model proteins. Isotopically-edited infrared (IR) spectroscopy is used to selectively probe the structure of particular regions of the studied proteins during folding or unfolding processes. In combination with mutational studies, insights into the roles of sequence specific interactions and physical origins of the folding mechanism are obtained. In parallel, infrared spectroscopic studies on model small molecules and quantum density functional theory calculations help understand and interpret the complex protein vibrational spectra.

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