Shi-jie Chen

Associate Professor of Biophysics & Biochemistry

Email:	chenshi@missouri.edu
Phone:	(573) 882-6626
Fax:	(573) 882-4195
Office:	302 Physics Building
Mailing Address:	Physics Department 223 Physics Building University of Missouri-Columbia Columbia, MO 65211
Research Areas:	Predicting RNA structures and structural changes; Computational studies of RNA thermal stability and folding kinetics.

Educational Background

BS		Zhejiang University	China	Physics
PhD		University of California	San Diego, Calif.	Physics

Research Description

We are studying the statistical thermodynamics and kinetics and computer modeling of biomolecules and polymers, particularly RNA & protein folding.

Biological molecules are large organic molecules composed of hundreds or thousands of atoms bound together by covalent bonds into a chain-like structure. One of the best known challenges in biology is to understand how biomolecules fold properly into compact structures to perform biological functions and how they mis-fold to cause disease. A fundamental problem we are pursuing is the study of the physical principles that govern folding-unfolding of bio-molecules. Based on the physical principles, we develop statistical mechanical theories and computational models to accurately predict the sequence-structure and structure-activity relationships for biomolecules. This involves biology, physics, computer science and, of course, mathematics.

Selected Publications

Tan, Zhijie and Shi-Jie Chen, "Ion-Mediated Nucleic Acid Helix-Helix Interactions", Biophysical Journal, 91: 518-536, 2006.

Cao, Song and Shi-Jie Chen, "Predicting RNA pseudoknot folding thermodynamics", Nucleic Acids Research, 34: 2634-2652, 2006.

Tan, Zhijie and Shi-Jie Chen. "Electrostatic Free Energy Landscapes for Nucleic Acid Helix Assembly", Nucleic Acids Research., . 34, No. 22, pp. 6629-39, 2006.

Cao, Song & ShiJie Chen, "Biphasic folding kinetics of RNA pseudoknots and human telomerase RNA activity". Journal of Molecular Biology, Accepted, Vol. 367, pp. 909-924, 2007.

Tan, Zhijie & ShiJie Chen, "RNA helix stability in mixed Na+/Mg2+ solution", Biophysical Journal, Vol 92, pp. 3615-3632, 2007.

Shi-Jie Chen. "RNA and Macromolecular Folding", Annual Review of Biophysics, Volume 37, 2008.