Time-resolved molecular mechanisms of essential biological processes

My talk will focus on the application of single molecule time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy as a tool to explore in real time the protein-nucleic acid interactions and dynamic structural rearrangements that drive biological pathways. We are currently studying the detailed mechanisms SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA processing, ribosome assembly, and DNA mismatch repair. I will present recent results from pulsed interleaved excitation fluorescence resonance energy transfer (PIE-FRET) and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) experiments. We aim to completely characterize the impact of mutations linked to disease on the molecular function of enzymes to understand how complex diseases develop at the molecular level and to identify new therapeutic targets.