Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science
Email: Pornthep.S@chula.ac.th
Research Associate University of Chicago
Postdoctoral fellow University of Virginia
Ph.D. University of Florence, Italy
M.Sc. (Chemistry) Chulalongkorn University
B.Sc. (Chemistry) Chulalongkorn University
Research Interest
Structure and function of membrane protein channels via molecular modeling and simulations, Computational modeling of structure and conformational changes of membrane protein channels, Computer-aided drug design of drug targets.
Research Overview
Ion channels are integral membrane proteins responsible for transmitting electrical and/or chemical signals across cell membranes. They switch between open and closed states by changing their conformation in response to external stimuli. Generally, the open and closed conformations of ion channels differ significantly and must be known for understanding the functional mechanism of ion channels at the molecular level. Because of technical difficulty, 3D crystal structure of ion channels is difficult to obtain more than one state in native environment. My primary research interest involves theoretical and computational studies of the structure, dynamics and conformational changes in membrane protein channels. The computational approaches including classical molecular dynamic simulation, Poisson-Boltzmann continuum electrostatic theory, developed computational methods such as PaDSAR (Pseudo-atom Derived Solvent Accessibility Refinement) are the main tools of our studies. Part of my research is in collaboration with Prof. Perozo’s group at the University of Chicago. My other research interests include computer-aided drug design and protein-ligand molecular docking.
Representative Publications