Research Interests

My research is focused on elucidating the structure and function of metalloenzymes using a combination of X-ray methods. The main emphasis is on understanding the mechanism of light-driven water oxidation in Photosystem II, a large membrane protein present in all organisms that conduct oxygenic photosynthesis. For this purpose, we use very intense femtosecond X-ray pulses as delivered by the X-ray free electron laser, Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), at Stanford. This technique allows us to record X-ray diffraction and X-ray spectroscopic data from the enzyme under working (physiological) conditions and provide information about the geometric and electronic structure of the catalytic site (a Mn₄CaO₅ cluster) of the enzyme during the water oxidation reaction. Also, we are working on generalizing these approaches to other metalloenzymes to study reaction intermediates not accessible with conventional X-ray methods.

Selected Publications

ResearchGate Profile