Jim Pfaendtner
Assistant Professor
Contact Information
Benson Hall Room 351
Box 351750
Seattle, WA 98195-1750
Phone: 206-616-8128
Fax: 206-685-3451
E-mail: jpfaendt@u.washington.edu
For more information, see the Pfaendtner Group Home Page.
Education
B.S. ChE Georgia Institute of Technology, 2001
Ph.D. Northwestern University, 2007
NSF International Research Fellowship Program, 2007-2009
Research Interests
- Alternative energy and biofuels
- Biomaterials
- Molecular biophysics
The overall focus of my research group is the use of theory, modeling and simulation to investigate fundamental and applied problems related to energy, materials and biophysics. We currently have several active research areas:
Cellulosic biofuel production
The goal of the proposed research is characterization and analysis of the biophysics and biochemistry underlying two enzyme families important to cellulosic biofuel production: cellulase and xylanase. Cellulase family enzymes are essential, as they are responsible for breakdown of the polymeric chains of starches to create precursors for fermentation. Xylanase is responsible for decomposition of xylan, a major component of many proposed "energy crops." Currently, a main challenge in expansion of cellulosic technology lies in improving the efficiency (or alternately, reducing the cost) of these enzymes. To help meet this goal, we are using state-of-the-art computational tools to study both enzyme/substrate binding as well as the actual biochemical reactions taking place in the enzyme active site. An overall multiscale modeling approach is being developed that includes coarse-grained modeling and enhanced free-energy sampling techniques.Multiscale investigation of novel biomaterials
Development of new polymers with tunable properties is a major challenge in materials research. This project investigates new biopolymers inspired by abundant naturally occurring polymeric materials with extraordinary properties. Dragline spider silk has evolved to be one of the strongest naturally occurring polymers: its energy to break is two orders of magnitude larger than high tensile steel, and it has a tensile strength similar to Kevlar. The origin of these remarkable properties lies in its underlying molecular structure. Both as a template for new materials and in its naturally occurring form, DSS could be an attractive choice for use in a wide range of applications, as it is a renewable biopolymer with superior properties to many commercially available materials. Furthermore, DSS is a spun fiber and has great potential for synthetic production and scaleup to meaningful quantities.Fundamental aspects of molecular biophysics
We develop and use modeling and simulation tools to investigate the mechanism of protein folding. Our approaches allow us to calculate the free-energy landscape for protein folding, and thereby identify meaningful intermediate and metastable states between the unfolded and native protein structure.
