Oliver Beckstein

In January 2012 I moved to Arizona State University to set up my own lab in the Center for Biological Physics in the Department of Physics. The pages at SBCB are retained for historic interest. For source code you are encouraged to follow the links at orbeckst.github.com.

Until the end of 2011 I worked as a postdoctoral research associate in the Structural Bioinformatics and Computational Biochemistry Unit and I am a Supernumerary Fellow at Merton College, Oxford; I am also collaborating with Tom Woolf's lab at the Department of Physiology, Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine in Baltimore, USA.

In my current research I am using computer simulations in order to understand how proteins—the molecular machines of the cell—function. In particular, I focus on

the mechanism by which transport proteins utilize the free energy stored in an ion gradient to drive uptake of substrates,
the role of macromolecular transitions in understanding ligand binding, gating in ion channels, or the translocation of substrates through the cell membrane;
computing observables that can be directly tested by experiments;
elucidating the role of water in confined geometries, for instance in ion channel gating mechanisms or ligand discrimination.

Please see my list of publications for details or click on the images below for a selection of what I do.

Mhp1 transporter in the inward facing conformation, embedded in a bilayer; pathways of sodium ions into the cytosol are shown.

Surface representation of retinol binding protein together with a water network between hydration sites.

Gate region (formed by a bundle of five helices) of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor with water density.

Sodium ion surrounded by water molecules.

For contact details see my pages at Arizona State University.

Structural Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Unit Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford South Parks Road Oxford OX1 3QU United Kingdom	Merton College Merton Street Oxford OX1 4JD United Kingdom
	PGP/GnuPG public key skype: orbeckst

DISCLAIMER: If you searched for my name on the internet you will find many pages that relate to my work or what I do. Sadly, there is one namesake who holds very different opinions from my own, and which I perceive as xenophobic or outright racist. This person publishes articles on the web (mostly in German) that one could mistake to be mine if one only looked at the name. They are not and I do not condone them. I will not link to any of those articles to avoid them gaining additional popularity. This unhappy situation arises because my name is relatively rare and aggregation of search results can give the impression that any page with the name 'Oliver Beckstein' is indeed by the same person.

So are the perils of the internet.

Last modified: 2012-07-14 by Oliver Beckstein