Wednesday Colloquia

Water around DNA: What’s So Special about It?

by Prof. Sobhan Sen (JNU, New Delhi)

Wednesday, August 26, 2015 from to (Asia/Kolkata)
at TIFR, Colaba, Mumbai ( AG - 66 (Lecture Theatre) )
Description
Abstract:
Water is indeed special for behaving strangely. The questions of how water around biomolecules; such as proteins, DNA and lipids, behaves in terms of its structure and dynamics, and how they affect the biomolecular functions have triggered tremendous research activities worldwide. Such activities not only unfolded unique characteristics of water around biomolecules, but also provoked heated debate for decades. DNA, being negatively charged, strongly interacts with surrounding water and positively charged ions, leading to complex behaviour of water (and ions) around DNA. Recent experimental and computer simulation studies have unfolded some unique characteristics of water around DNA [1,2], which will be discussed in this talk to show the speciality of water around DNA.

(1) Pal et al. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2015, 6, 1754. 
(2) Sen et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2009, 131, 1724.
Organised by Sushil Mujumdar, Wednesday Colloquium Coordinator