1. Ultrafast spectroscopy of Flavoproteins including photoreceptor BLUF domains, flavodoxins and photolyase

Proteins containing flavin cofactor are widely found in nature and exhibit diverse biological functions. Our group combines molecular biology methods and ultrafast spectroscopy to study and investigate the ultrafast mechanism of these proteins. The research currently carried out by our group include: 1. Investigation of BLUF (sensor of Blue Light Using Flavin adenine dinucleotide) domain photochemistry and structural reorganisation process in attempt to understand its biological functions. 2. Research of electron transfer process in flavodoxin with non-equilibrium electron transfer theory. 3. Investigation of reduction mechanism and DNA repair mechanism of photolyase.

2. Aggregation kinetics of amyloid protein segments using non-natural amino acids and vibrational spectroscopy

Aggregation of amyloid protein segments is closely related to various neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), and Parkinson disease. Our group is interested in studying the aggregation dynamic of amyloid protein segments using non-natural amino acid labelling and infrared spectroscopy. Currently the amyloid systems we are researching are SOD1 segments which is related to ALS and amylin (IAPP) which is related to diabetes.