-We have designed an improved method for solving the embedding problem, which consists in generating molecular conformations satisfying prescribed distance restraints. The problem was broken up into smaller subproblems by carrying out separate embeddings of subsets of the original point set. The relative orientation of the subsets were then determined by an additional embedding and the final co...

at Spelman College, worked with Pankaj Agarwal and Yusu Wang, who just completed her PhD, at Duke. Hillary’s summer project was about analyzing the performance of the algorithm developed at Duke to generate features on a molecular surface. The features are then used to predict good configurations for protein docking. For efficiency reasons, we would like to use as few features as possible. The ...

Using a simple hydrophobic/polar protein model, we perform a Monte Carlo study of the thermodynamics and kinetics of binding to a target structure for two closely related sequences, one of which has a unique folded state while the other is unstructured. We obtain significant differences in their binding behavior. The stable sequence has rigid docking as its preferred binding mode, while the uns...

N a g a k u m a r B h a r a t h a m e t a l. N a g a k u m a r B h a r a t h a m , K a v i t h a B h a r a t h a m ,

In this paper, we presented a design for an automated cell supply system that can be used with complex microfluidic applications requiring single cell loading such as the current nuclear transplantation method. The aim of the system is to automatically transfer mammalian donor (∼15μm) or egg (∼100μm) cells one by one from a container to a PDMS micro-channel and then transport them to other modu...

When spacecrafts dock with each other, impact will rise at the docking point. It is assumed in this paper that a docking platform having the shape of Stewart platform is attached at the one of the docking spacecrafts to reduce the effect of impact. Although the impact between two spacecrafts at the contact point of the upper plate of the platform is very large, the impact is absorbed by the doc...

Metamorphic robots are modular robots that can reconfigure their shape. Such capability is desirable in tasks such as earthquake search and rescue and battlefield surveillance and scouting, where robots must go through unexpected situations and obstacles and perform tasks that are difficult for fixed-shape robots. The capabilities of the robots are determined by the design specification of thei...