Raman spectroscopy is an inelastic scattering technique that reveals vibrational spectra of molecules. When the excitation wavelength is tuned to fall within an absorption band of a chromophore, the Raman effect is called resonance Raman scattering.
The resonance condition leads to significant enhancement of signal from the absorbing species, and thereby allows for investigations of specific chromophores within a complex mixture of molecules.
This presentation will describe resonance Raman spectroscopy of biomolecules, with focus on UV resonance Raman spectroscopy as a probe of secondary structure, local environment, and hydrogen-bonding structure of proteins and peptides.
A brief introduction to the absorption properties of proteins will be provided. Special emphasis will be placed on aromatic amino acid residues and peptide backbone, as well as their vibrational structures. Examples and a brief technical guide will be provided.
Judy Kim is an Associate Professor and the Kurt Shuler Scholar in Physical Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UC San Diego. She earned a B.S. in Chemistry and M.S. in Atmospheric Sciences from MIT, followed by a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. She continued her training in spectroscopy and biophysics as an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at Caltech. She began her career at UC San Diego in 2005, and has established a research program that centers on spectroscopic studies of membrane proteins and biological electron transfer reactions.
