Proteins and Metals

About one third of the proteins in the human body contain metals. Metalloproteins are essential for basic processes in life, such as DNA synthesis, detoxification, nitrogen, oxygen and carbon transportation. Despite their crucial roles in basic life processes, interactions of metals with proteins can also cause severe diseases and death. To avoid such detrimental interactions in the human body, treatments that involve metal ion chelators or other small organic molecules as drugs need to be designed and synthesized. However, effective studies that aim to design new treatments require knowledge about the coordination chemistry between the metal and protein as well as the structure of the metalloprotein. Our group investigates the coordination chemistry mechanisms of biological transition metal ions, such as copper, zinc and iron with intrinsically disordered proteins that are at the center of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases. We provide atomic level information with dynamics about the metalloprotein structures in solution. Even though all may sound easy, please know that these research activities are complex since it requires first the development of strategies and parameters using quantum mechanics and then the applications of  statistical mechanics and thermodynamics. It is fun to develop new methods and techniques and/or parameters and then to apply these on metalloproteins, which may help to find more effective treatments to severe diseases. When you think about how many millions of people and their loved ones are affected by specific severe diseases, such as neurodegenerative diseases, it is worth to work hard with the hope that our studies can provide important milestones towards finding better treatments.