Piotr E. Marszalek Ph. D. - Electrotechnical Institute / Polish Academy of Science, Warsaw, Poland Associate Professor Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science piotr@mems.egr.duke.edu

Mechanical properties of single molecules and clusters of atoms are of utmost importance in biology and nanotechnology. We are interested in plastic and elastic deformations in inorganic atomic clusters that form nanowires or organic clusters that form flexible, ring-like molecules (e.g. glucose). Of particular interest to us are the elastic properties of single biopolymers such as polysaccharides, DNA or proteins and their force-induced conformational transitions (e.g. chair to boat transitions in the pyranose ring). Our main experimental methodology is atomic force microscopy (AFM) that allows us to manipulate mesoscopic scale systems and even single molecules. We model mechanical properties of atomic clusters using quantum mechanics and molecular dynamics methodologies.

Professor Marszalek's Recent Publications (Selected):

Marszalek, P.E., Li, H., Oberhauser, A.F. & Fernandez, J.M. (2002).  Chair-boat  transitions in single polysaccharide molecules observed with force-ramp AFM.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA).  99, 4278-4283.

Marszalek, P.E., Li, H. & Fernandez, J.M. (2001).  Fingerprinting polysaccharides with single molecule AFM.  Nature Biotechnology  19, 258-262.

Fisher, T.E., Marszalek, P.E. & Fernandez J.M. (2000).  Stretching single molecules into novel conformations using the atomic force microscope.  Nature Structural Biology  7, 719-724.

Marszalek, P.E., Greenleaf, W.J., Li, H., Oberhauser, A.F., & Fernandez, J.M. (2000).  AFM captures quantized plastic deformations in gold nanowires.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA  97, 6282-6286.

Marszalek, P.E., Lu, H., Li, H., Carrion-Vazquez, M., Oberhauser, A.F., Schulten, K., & Fernandez, J.M. (1999).  Mechanical unfolding intermediates in titin modules.  Nature  402, 100-103.

Marszalek, P.E., Pang, Y-P., Li, H., El Yazal, J., Oberhauser, A.F, & Fernandez, J.M. (1999).  Atomic levers control pyranose ring conformations.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA  96, 7894-7898.

Marszalek, P.E., Oberhauser, A.F., Pang, Y.-P., & Fernandez, J.M. (1998).  Polysaccharide elasticity governed by chair-boat transitions of the glucopyranose ring.  Nature  396, 661-664.