- Vijay Pande
Vijay S. Pande is currently an
Associate Professor in theChemistry Department atStanford University . Pande’s current research centers on the development and application of novelgrid computing simulation techniques to address problems inchemical biology . In particular, he has pioneered novel distributed computing methodology to break fundamental barriers in the simulation of kinetics andthermodynamics ofproteins andnucleic acids . As director of the "Folding@Home " and "Genome@Home" projects, Prof. Pande has directly simulatedprotein folding dynamics with quantitative comparisons through experiment, often considered a “holy grail” of computational biology. His current research also includes novel simulation methods for high precision drug binding affinity calculations, protein design, and synthetic bio-mimetic polymers.After graduating from
Langley High School , Pande received a BA inPhysics fromPrinceton University in 1992. There, he was first introduced to biophysical questions, especially in his undergraduate thesis research with Philip Anderson, aNobel Laureate in physics. Three years later, he received his Ph.D. in physics fromMassachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), studying as an NSF Fellow under Profs. Toyoichi Tanaka and Alexander Grosberg. At MIT, Pande’s research centered on statistical mechanical models of protein folding and design, analyzing ways to design protein sequences to have the desired stability and folding properties. As a Miller Fellow working withDaniel Rokhsar atUC Berkeley , Pande extended this methodology to examine atomistic protein models.Pande has won numerous awards, including most recently being named to MIT’s TR100 (top young innovators in 2002), a Frederick E. Terman Fellowship (2002), a Henry and Camile Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar (2003), and the Irving Sigal Young Investigator of the Protein Society (2006). Pande holds the position of Associate Professor of Chemistry and (by courtesy) of Structural Biology. He currently teaches an undergraduate course on chemical thermodynamics and a graduate course on statistical mechanics.
External links
* [http://www.stanford.edu/dept/chemistry/faculty/pande/ Professor Pande's Stanford Faculty Page]
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