Weston T. and Sheila Borden Endowed Lecture in Theoretical Chemistry: Prof. Benedetta Mennucci
Event interval: Single day event
Campus location: Electrical and Computer Engineering Building (ECE)
Campus room: ECE 125
Accessibility Contact: chem59x@uw.edu
Event Types: Lectures/Seminars
Event sponsors: This lecture is supported by the Weston and Sheila Borden Endowed Fund in Chemistry, established by the Bordens in 2015.
Weston T. Borden served on the University of Washington chemistry faculty for 31 years. His research involved the use of molecular orbital (MO) theory and MO-based calculations to understand and predict the structures and reactions of organic and organometallic molecules. Sheila Borden received her B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in chemistry from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. After a year at the University of Oslo, she joined the staff of the Royal Society of Chemistry, where she eventually became managing editor of the RSC's organic chemistry journals. In 2004, she moved to the University of North Texas to lead the JACS Editorial Office.
Link: https://molecolab.dcci.unipi.it/
Weston T. and Sheila Borden Endowed Lecture in Theoretical Chemistry
"Photoactivated biological functions: Bridging Electronic Excitations to Functional Response through Multiscale Simulations"
Professor Benedetta Mennucci – Department of Chemistry, University of Pisa
Host: Xiaosong Li
Living organisms across all domains of life rely on specialized light-sensitive proteins to detect and respond to light. Although these systems adopt diverse molecular strategies, they share a common triggering event: the electronic excitation of a chromophoric unit embedded within the protein. This initial excitation is subsequently converted into different forms of energy and propagated through the system, ultimately leading to a biological response. The underlying processes span multiple spatial and temporal scales, ranging from ultrafast electronic dynamics localized on the chromophoric unit to much slower, large-scale conformational changes of the protein matrix. Here, a multiscale computational framework is presented to describe this cascade of events in a unified manner . Its application to a representative system demonstrates how the approach enables a consistent, end-to-end description from photoexcitation to functional response .
References
Salvadori, G., Mazzeo, P., Accomasso, D., Cupellini, L. & Mennucci, B. Deciphering Photoreceptors Through Atomistic Modeling from Light Absorption to Conformational Response. J. Mol. Biol. 436, 168358 (2024).
Mennucci, B. A quantum chemical perspective of photoactivated biological functions. Pure Appl. Chem. 97, 1239–1254 (2025).
Arcidiacono, A., Bondanza, M., Cupellini, L. & Mennucci, B. Atomistic simulations reveal the photoactivation mechanism of a carotenoid-binding photoreceptor. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 123, e2515214123 (2026).
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