Faculty Profile

Our lab investigates the ribosome, the universal molecular machine that synthesizes all proteins, using an integrated approach combining single molecule biophysics, force spectroscopy, and artificial intelligence. We developed the application of smFRET and FIRMS (force induced remnant magnetization spectroscopy) to directly visualize and measure the mechanical power stroke of elongation factor EF-G during ribosome translocation, and to dissect the mechanisms of ribosomal frameshifting with single nucleotide resolution. More recently, we developed multichannel smFRET instrumentation to study large, multidomain complexes such as EF-G in real time on the ribosome. Our lab is now integrating AI tools, including AlphaFold3 and ancestral sequence reconstruction, with experiments to address challenging problems that are not reachable before, such as more efficient drug discovery and ribosome evolutions. The tight coupling between computation and experiments within a single laboratory will pave the way for many new discoveries. If you are interested in joining the lab, please email ywang60@uh.edu.