(189ax) Proteins in Extreme Environments: From Understanding Life to Potential Applications

The traditional paradigm of biology often considers life over a very narrow range of physiological conditions. However, from the frigid waters of the Antarctic Ocean to high-altitude Andes, deep-sea hydrothermal vents within the Earth’s crust or high-pressure depths of the sea, life can exist in all sorts of extreme environments. In fact, some organisms do not just survive but thrive in such environments. The existence of such extremophiles motivates the following questions: What are the fundamental features of life? What environments and evolutionary paths enable the survival of living organisms? Can we utilize our fundamental understanding of life in extreme environments for practical applications?

We use molecular simulations combined with advanced sampling methods and dimensionality reduction techniques to shed light onto how extreme conditions affect proteins - one of the major building blocks of life. Specifics areas of interest include ionic-liquid induced effects on protein folding mechanisms and kinetics, protein stability in aqueous inorganic solvents with direct applications in novel drug encapsulation methods, and the phase behavior of proteins as a response to protein-water interactions in the temperature-pressure space.