Title：Capturing Molecular Movies of Fluorescent Proteins and Materials with Ultrafast Raman Spectroscopy

Time：2023-08-22 09:00

Lecturer： Professor Chong Fang

Oregon State University (OSU)

Venue：Room 234, Chemistry Building

Abstruct: Structure and dynamics of condensed-phase systems govern their functions which broadly impact biological and materials applications. However, a complete understanding of these processes is hindered by the lack of suitable tools that can resolve nuclear motions on intrinsic molecular timescales. This talk discusses wavelength-tunable femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy, aided by transient absorption and quantum calculations, enabling the capture of molecular movies for fluorescence and other nonradiative relaxation events like never before. Representative examples include green fluorescent protein (GFP) from jellyfish that can be engineered to emit from blue, green to red for calcium sensing, water structure in battery electrolytes, and novel materials for photocatalysis. Such mechanistic insights have enabled us to elucidate the excited-state potential energy landscape and rationally design bioimaging and optoelectronic systems with strategic substitutions and versatile functions.

Biography: Dr. Chong Fang is currently Professor of Chemistry at Oregon State University. Dr. Fang earned Ph.D. (2006) from the late Prof. Robin Hochstrasser at UPenn focusing on 2D-IR studies of biomolecules from helices to drug-enzyme complexes in aqueous solution (a PNAS Cover in 2007), and performed his postdoctoral research with Prof. Richard Mathies at UC Berkeley (2007–2010) on the wild-type GFP fluorescence mechanism (a Nature Cover in 2009). Earlier, Dr. Fang obtained dual B.S. in Chemical Physics and Applied Computer Science from USTC (1996–2001), where he received the Guo Moruo Scholarship in 2000. Since 2010, the Fang Group at Oregon State has developed state-of-the-art ultrafast spectroscopic toolsets including tunable femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy (FSRS) and broadband up-converted multicolor array (BUMA) to capture “molecular movies” and elucidated the structure-function relationships of molecular systems ranging from biosensors and proteins (ACIE and PCCP Covers in 2023), photoacids to metal-organic complexes (a JPCL Cover in 2018), and battery electrolytes. His research has been featured in Imaging & Microscopy (Germany), The Analytical Scientist and Research Features (UK), ScienceDaily, Phys.org, Medical News Today, Modern Metals, and KMTR TV (USA), to name a few. Notable accolades include the NSF CAREER Award (2015–2021), the inaugural 2015 Robin Hochstrasser International Young Investigator Award (Elsevier and Chemical Physics), the 2016 OSU Promising Scholar Award and Milton Harris Faculty Teaching Award, the 2019 OSU Impact Award for Outstanding Scholarship, the 2021 College of Science Milton Harris Award in Basic Research, and the 2023 OSU Excellence in Postdoctoral Mentoring Award.

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