Paul Grayson
Hello, I'm a fifth-year graduate student in the Rob Phillips group at Caltech, working on experimental studies of bacteriophage mechanics.
Office: 132 Broad
Phone: 626-395-3333
Email: grayson@caltech.edu
Curriculum Vitae (360k PDF)
Research Interests
We are studying the role of internal pressure in DNA delivery by viruses, focusing on the tailed dsDNA bacteriophage family, including phages lambda, phi29, T5, and P22. We have successfully measured the internal pressure of lambda at 20-25 atm and observed DNA ejection in real time, determining a velocity of up to 60 kbp/s. This kind of analysis requires a variety of bulk and single-molecule techniques including theoretical modeling of phages at many levels.
Publications
- Real time observations of single bacteriophage λ DNA ejections in vitro. Paul Grayson, Lin Han, Tabita Winther, and Rob Phillips. Submitted to PNAS, 2007. [supplementary movies]
- Is phage DNA "injected" into cells - biologists and physicists can agree. Paul Grayson and Ian J. Molineux. Accepted for publication in Current Opinion in Microbiology, 2007.
- Biological Consequences of Tightly Bent DNA: The Other Life of a Macromolecular Celebrity. Hernan G. Garcia, Paul Grayson, Lin Han, Mandar Inamdar, Jané Kondev, Philip C. Nelson, Jonathan Widom and Paul A. Wiggins. Biopolymers 85(2):115-130 (2007).
- The Effect of Genome Length on Ejection Forces in Bacteriophage Lambda. Paul Grayson, Alex Evilevitch, Mandar M. Inamdar, Prashant K. Purohit, William M. Gelbart, Charles M. Knobler, and Rob Phillips. Virology, 2006, 348(2):430-436, 2006.
- Forces During Bacteriophage DNA Packaging and Ejection. Prashant Purohit, Mandar Inamdar, Paul Grayson, Todd Squires, Jané Kondev, and Rob Phillips. Biophysical Journal, 88:851-866, 2005.
- Conductance and physical asymmetry of the Escherichia coli glycerol facilitator GlpF. Deyu Lu, Paul Grayson, and Klaus Schulten. Biophysical Journal, 85:2977-2987, 2003.
- Mechanisms of selectivity in channels and enzymes studied with interactive molecular dynamics. Paul Grayson, Emad Tajkhorshid, and Klaus Schulten. Biophysical Journal, 85:36-48, 2003.
- A System for Interactive Molecular Dynamics Simulation. John E. Stone, Justin Gullingsrud, Klaus Schulten, Paul Grayson. In 2001 ACM Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics, John F. Hughes and Carlo H. Sequin, editors, pages 191-194, New York, 2001, ACM SIGGRAPH.
Recent External Presentations
- Real time visualization of genome ejection from bacteriophages. Single Molecule Biophysics Conference, Aspen, CO, 2007.
- The role of pressure in DNA ejection from bacteriophage λ. Poster for PCAMB Conference, Puebla, Mexico, 2007. (1200k PDF)
- Real time visualization of genome ejection from bacteriophage lambda: how internal pressure drives the translocation of DNA. Special Biophysics Seminar, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 2006.
- Pressure in bacteriophages. Theoretical Biophysics Seminar, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, 2005.
- Viruses: designed by evolution, constrained by physics. Guest lecture for Nature's Designs, an undergraduate course at the Art Center, Pasadena, CA, 2005.
- Pressure in bacteriophages. Phage/Virus Assembly Meeting, Winter Park, CO, 2005.
- Measurements of pressurized DNA in phage capsids. Poster for Biophysical Society Meeting, 2005. (800k PDF)
Education
- Ph.D. in Physics, with Prof. Rob Phillips. California Institute of Technology, 2002-2007 (est. June).
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Graduate research with Prof. Klaus Schulten. University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign, 2001-2002.
Implemented the new technique Interactive Molecular Dynamics, interfacing molecular dynamics simulations to haptic force-feedback to allow users to literally feel simulated molecules. Contributed this feature to the source code of VMD and NAMD, the group's molecular visualization and simulation software, in parallel with scientific studies on the bacterial aquaglyceroporin GlpF and glycerol kinase.
- S.B. in Physics with Electrical Engineering. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001.
- S.B. in Mathematics. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001.
Links
- This page compares the packaging properties of several different bacteriophage as well as human viruses.
- See Pololu for my side-interest in robotics.
- Personal home page
- Pinyin converter for reading Chinese Characters
- A Chinese language site in progress
- Phage obtained from rejection letter - true story or myth?
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