Laboratory of Structural Biology at Faculty of Biological Sciences  University of South Bohemia

 

Lukáš Trantírek

 

Laboratory of Structural Biology, Department of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of South Bohemia, Branišovská 31, České Budějovice CZ-370 05, Czech Republic, tel. +420-38777 2275, fax. +420-38 385 310 366, e-mail: trant@bf.jcu.cz

 

 

The organization and research focus of the “Laboratory of Structural Biology” will be presented. The laboratory has been established in January 2004 as an inherent part of the Department of  Molecular Biology at the Faculty of Biological Sciences - University of South Bohemia. Currently, the laboratory comprises of three undergraduate and three graduate student, and two independent research scientists.  The research in the laboratory is divided in three  areas: a) quantum chemical calculations of the NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) spectral parameters and development of the novel schemes for interpretation of the NMR data, b) investigation of the function-structure relationships in RNA-protein complexes involved in RNA editing in Trypanosoma brucei – causing agent of the sleeping sickness, c) investigation of the general phylogenetic relationships among different species on the basis of the structural information. The  research activities are based predominantly on: a) quantum chemical calculations (Dalton, Gaussian), b) NMR, CD, and UV spectroscopy, c) protein crystallography, and d) conventional molecular biological methods. Members of the laboratory are involved in teaching at South Bohemia University in fields of Bioinformatics and  Organic chemistry. The laboratory  actively  collaborates  with Institute of Organic Chemistry at Johannes Kepler University in Linz (Austria – prof. N. Muller), Laboratory of Pharmacological Biochemistry and Bio-organic chemistry at René Descartes University - Paris 5 (France – prof. J. Kozelka), and Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Oregon Health & Science University Portland (USA- prof. M. Schumacher).

 

Acknowledgement:

Work in laboratory of structural biology is supported by Grand agency of the Czech Republic (GACR P191; and GACR 203/05/0388) and Ministry of Education (1K04011; and LN2005 Faculty of Biological Sciences).