Michael Fuson

I am interested in internal motion in macromolecules, ranging from synthetic polymers to lipids and peptides. This interest began with my doctoral studies which used NMR spin relaxation to study molecular motion in model biomembranes. Such motions are involved in many of the functional properties of the membranes, such as permeation of small molecules and the interactions of the different membrane components. During my post-doctoral work I began studying the local motions of synthetic polymers in solution. Local motions in polymers are as fast as the motions of small molecules, which is interesting given the huge size of polymer molecules. My own work has focused on characterizing the anisotropy of that motion, with the hope of shedding light on the 3-D details of the motion. Most recently, I have been using both spin relaxation and molecular dynamics simulation to study the internal motion of a small unstructured peptide, leucine enkephalin and to study motion in sterically crowded polymers such as polyisobutylene. It has been exciting to see how experimental and theoretical tools can complement each other in helping to understand molecular motions.