Chemistry Department Faculty

Udayan Mohanty

Professor of Chemistry

Photo of Udayan Mohanty

Udayan Mohanty

Ph.D.

Contact

Merkert Center 240

Telephone: 617-552-3610

Email: udayan.mohanty@bc.edu

Education

  • Ph.D., Brown University
  • B.Sc., Cornell University

Research Interests

Theoretical biophysics and physical chemistry.

Group Research Website

Research

After over a decade and half in theoretical physical chemistry and chemical physics of disordered systems, particularly supercooled liquids, quasi-crystals, glass, solid-liquid phase transition, much of Udayan Mohanty鈥檚 research focus since 1994 has been on problems that bridge the gap between chemistry and biophysics. Early work explored polyelectrolyte behavior of highly charged biopolymers (Gerald Manning (Rutgers)), including A-tracts with Tali Haran (Israel Institute of Technology), in aqueous solution. He has played a leading role in developing, in collaboration with experimental groups (Steven Chu (Stanford) and David Bartel (MIT)), the effects of ion atmosphere on the dynamics of nucleic acid fragments in free solution and in gels. Mohanty has established theoretical frameworks with Clifford Taubes (Harvard) and computational methods with Jose Onuchic (Rice) of analysis to excess ion atmosphere around DNAs and RNAs, including riboswitches and rRNAs. Much of Mohanty鈥檚 current research has centered on developing techniques to unravel how diffuse ions regulate conformational dynamics of group-II introns and ribonuclear protein assemblies (Paul Whitford, Northeastern).聽 A recent aspect of Mohanty research has been in materials. In close coupling between theory and experiments (with Dunwei Wang and Lucas Bao), Mohanty鈥檚 efforts have been in controlling ionic behaviors in metal-organic-frameworks (MOF) for Mg2+聽transport.聽 Another recent aspect of Mohanty research has been in establishing computational methods for conformational dynamics of glycosaminoglycans and their synthetic analogs (with Jia Niu).聽

Selected Honors and Awards

  • Fellow, American Physical Society
  • Fellow, AAAS
  • Fellow, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
  • Fellow, The Royal Society of Chemistry

Representative Key Publications

  • Levy, M.; Walak, K.; Wang, A.; Mohanty, U.; Whitford, P. C.聽 A steric gate controls P/E hybrid-state formation of tRNA on the ribosome.聽 Nat. Commun. 2020, 11, 5706.
  • Luo, J.; Li, Y.; Zhang, H.; Wang, A. Lo, W. S.; Dong, Q.; Wong, N.; Povinelli, C.; Shao, Y. Chereddy, S.; Wunder, S.; Mohanty, U.; Tsung, C. K.; Wang, D. A metal-organic framework thin film for selective Mg2+ transport. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2019, 58, 15313-15317.聽
  • Levi, M.; Bandarkar, P.; Yang, H.; Wang, A.; Mohanty, U.; Noel, J. K.; Whitford, P. C. In Methods in Molecular Biology, edited by Bonomi, C.; Bonomi, M. Springer series (2019); Using SMOG2 to simulate complex biomolecular assemblies, pp 1-18. bioRxiv 371617. doi: 10.1101/371617.聽聽
  • Hutchison, C.; Bhattarai, A.; Wang, A.; Mohanty, U. Fluctuation effects in the Adam-Gibbs model of cooperaive relaxation. J. Phys. Chem. B 2019, 123, 8086-8090.聽
  • Lammert, H.; Wang, A.; Mohanty, U.; Onuchic, J. N. RNA as a complex polymer with coupled dynamics of ions and water in the outer solvation sphere. J. Phys. Chem. B 2018, 122, 11218- 11227.聽
  • Hayes, R. L.; Noel, J. K.; Mandic, A.; Whitford, P.; Sanbonmatsu, K.; Mohanty, U.; Onuchic, J. N. Generalized Manning condensation model captures the RNA ion atmosphere. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2015, 114, 258105-1 258105-6.聽
  • Hayes, R. L.; Noel, J. K.; Mohanty, U.; Whitford, P. C.; Hennelly, P. C.; Onuchic, J. N.; Sanbonmatsu, K. Y. Magnesium fluctuations modulate RNA dynamics in the SAM-I riboswitch. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2012, 134, 12043-122053.聽
  • Guo, Z.; Mohanty, U.; Noehre, J.; Sawyer, K. T.; Sherman, W.; Krilov, G. Probing the 伪- helical structural stability of stapled p53 peptides: molecular dynamics simulations and analysis. Chem. Biol & Drug Design 2010, 75, 348-359.
Back To Top