Laboratory Members

The vanguard of single-molecule biophysics, soft-matter thermodynamics, and physics-informed machine learning.

Principal Investigator

Dr. Bryan A. Krantz

Bryan A. Krantz, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Dr. Krantz leads the laboratory in the rigorous application of physical chemistry and thermodynamics to biological systems. With a foundational background in protein folding (using kinetic D/H amide isotope effects and Ψ-analysis), his work fundamentally redefined the anthrax toxin from a static pore to a dynamic, environmentally sensing Brownian ratchet. Current research spans the engineering of single-molecule translocases for de novo proteomics, decoding the thermodynamics of unfoldases, and establishing the bioenergetic etiology of metabolic psychiatry and neuroimmunology.

Postdoctoral Fellows

Dr. Jaylen E. Taylor

Jaylen E. Taylor, Ph.D.

Biophysics & Electrophysiology

Jaylen leads the single-molecule bilayer electrophysiology efforts in the lab. She is actively evaluated the dynamical PA nanopore as a sophisticated peptide biosensor using Physics Informed-Machine Learning (PIML). Her research also focuses on isolating the thermodynamic and mechanical variables of protein translocation. She is additionally characterizing the physiological bile acid gating mechanism of the PA translocase.

Dr. Parichit Sharma

Parichit Sharma, Ph.D.

Computational Biophysics & PIML

Parichit spearheads the computational and machine learning architecture for the lab's proteomics platform. He developed the Physics-Informed Machine Learning (PIML) pipeline, engineering a 120-feature thermodynamic matrix to decode discrete Markovian state transitions from the PA nanopore. He is also optimizing the hardware integration of the 1-million well AXP-100 CMOS array via automated data QC, and executing Steered Molecular Dynamics (SMD) simulations to map molecular shear forces.