Sorin Lab News

2022/23 Updates (see archive)

news photo Biochemist Daniel Chavez-Bonilla received the 2023 John H. Stern Summer Research Assistantship and Award in Physical Chemistry

news photo Computer Science major and Sorin Lab SysAdmin Nicholas Tsimerekis earned a 2023 Summer Internship @ NASA Jet Propulsion Labratory!

news photo Sorin Labber Karel Aceituno will start the Neuroscience PhD program at USC in the fall 2023 semester

news photo Information Systems major Daniel Sanchez was admitted to the prestigious McNair Scholars program!



2021 Updates (see archive)

news photo Undergrad lab members Jia Mao & Danna De Boer both received CSULB Summer Research Awards to support their summer research efforts

news photo Biochemistry major Karel Aceituno was awarded the 2021 John H. Stern Summer Research Assitantship & admitted to the RISE program!

news photo BME major and Sorin Lab member Jessica Moore has accepted admission to the UC Irvine Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. program for fall 2021

news photo Chem/German double major Danna De Boer was admitted to a research internship in Germany where she'll model gecko surface adhesion

news photo ChemEng major Nguyet Nguyen earned a Best Poster award @ the Spring ACS Meeting and a SoCalGas research assistantship


2020 Updates (see archive)

news photo BS Chemistry major Daniel Figueroa was awarded the 2020 Stern Award for Excellence in Physical Chemistry

news photo Chemical Engineering major Jia Mao was awarded a Women & Philanthropy Scholarship to support his research into BChE inhibition

news photo Congratulations to lab alumnus and University of Chicago Biophysics PhD student Walter Alvarado on becoming a NASA Fellow!


Computational Biochemistry & Biophysics

Members of the Sorin Lab study the structure and dynamics of biological molecules via computer modeling and simulation. Using cluster computing and the Folding@Home Distributed Computing Project, we can apply a variety of models and methods to sample large numbers of independent simulations: we are now capable of simulating some molecular events in dynamic equilibrium, making simulation a powerful tool with which to probe topics in molecular biology and biophysics including molecular recognition and drug design, RNA and protein folding, and related processes. [ Click here to volunteer for a research position (.doc) ]


Sorin Lab August 2020

Back: Prof. Eric J. Sorin, Elliot Barton, Trevor Gerdes, Nicholas Tsimerekis, and J Garcia
Front: Ben Doan, Alexia Chinn, Daniel Chavez-Bonilla, Carlos Villalobos, and Megan Calderon

Recent Publications

EDSCI
A Hands-On Collaboration-Ready Single- or Interdisciplinary Computational Exercise in Molecular Recognition and Drug Design. Patrick Allen, Nguyet Nguyen, Nicholas D. Humphrey, Jia Mao, Daniel Chavez-Bonilla, and Eric J. Sorin (2024). Education Sciences, 14, 139, doi.org/10.3390/educsci14020139.
JCIM
Energetically unfavorable protein angles: Exploration of a conserved dihedral angle in triosephosphateisomerase. Patrick W. Allen, Jordan A. Cook, Anh N. Colquhoun, Eric J. Sorin, Enrico Tapavicza, and Jason P. Schwans (2022). Biopolymers, 113, e23525, doi.org/10.1002/bip.23525.
JCIM
A Comprehensive Review of Cholinesterase Modeling and Simulation. Danna De Boer, Nguyet Nguyen, Jia Mao, Jessica Moore, & Eric J. Sorin* (2021). Biomolecules, 11, 580, DOI:10.3390/biom11040580.
JCIM
Overcoming the Heuristic Nature of k-means Clustering: Identification and Characterization of Binding Modes from Simulations of Molecular Recognition Complexes. Parker Ladd Bremer, Danna De Boer, Walter Alvarado, Xavier Martinez, & Eric J. Sorin* (2020). Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling, 60(6), 3081 - 3092, DOI:10.1021/acs.jcim.9b01137.
Understanding the Enzyme-Ligand Complex: Insights from All-Atom Simulations of Butyrylcholinesterase Inhibition. Walter Alvarado, Parker Ladd Bremer, Angela Choy, Helen N. Dinh, Aingty Eung, Jeannette Gonzalez, Phillippe Ly, Trina Tran, Kensaku Nakayama*, Jason P. Schwans*, and Eric J. Sorin* (2019). Journal of Biomolecular Structure & Dynamics, 38(4), doi:DOI:10.1080/07391102.2019.1596836.
Synthesis, biochemical evaluation, and molecular modeling studies of aryl and arylalkyl di-n-butyl phosphates, effective butyrylcho linesterase inhibitors. Kensaku Nakayamaa*, Jason P. Schwans*, Eric J. Sorin*, Trina Tran, Jeannette Gonzalez, Elvis Arteaga, Sean McCoy & Walter Alvarado (2017). Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry, 25(12), 3171–3181, doi:10.1016/j.bmc.2017.04.002.
ApoE
Ensemble simulations: folding, unfolding and misfolding of a high-efficiency frameshifting RNA pseudoknot . Khai K. Q. Nguyen, Yessica K. Gomez, Mona Bakhom, Amethyst Radcliffe, Phuc La, Dakota Rochelle, Ji Won Lee & Eric J. Sorin* (2017). Nucleic Acids Research 45, doi:10.1093/nar/gkx012.